


Three Days

by Lady_sb



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Drama, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Gen, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:41:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23980225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_sb/pseuds/Lady_sb
Summary: It is only three days, Sonny Carisi tells himself. A three day getaway to Iowa, to ask Barba about one of his old cases. So what if they used to have something? That was years ago and it didn’t amount to anything.What’s the worst that can happen in three days?
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 35
Kudos: 142





	1. ~Day One~

**Author's Note:**

> Hello wonderful people. I come with a fic based on a idea I had years ago of an almost 3-act play, where a relationship goes through its paces in the course of three days. And the fact that Barba is in Iowa gave me a great jumping off point. 
> 
> The update will be a chapter a week (fingers crossed if the world doesn't implode). I am aiming to finish this asap before I embark on some challenges I have coming up. 
> 
> I do also realise while its called three days, it is actually four chapters, but I am too married to the idea now ^^;; So day 4 is kinda like the epilogue. 
> 
> While my feelings for the fandom in general are complicated, and my fics are my attempt to workshop through them, the people in this corner of the fandom are lovely. This is for all of them. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and as always comments/kudos are love.

***

_What I realised only after I hurt you was that_  
_I was looking for a number of faults in you_  
_When we should have looked at each other_

***

It was at the border of Illinois and Iowa that it came to Sonny Carisi that maybe this was a bad idea.

By rights it shouldn’t have disturbed him. Over the years he had a healthy share of bad ideas come to him, some of which he had indulged, and others that he had judiciously ignored. 

Going to law school while at the same time working as a cop? That turned out great. 

Growing out a beard so that his moustache wouldn’t be lonely? Wisely sidestepped. 

Getting into a colleagues-with-benefits arrangement with Rafael Barba? Well, the jury was still out on that one. 

Sonny winced as the train he was on entered a tunnel, making his cabin go dark and his ears painfully pop. When was the last time he had taken a train that wasn’t the subway, he wondered. 

In fact, Sonny had to search his memories as far back as his early twenties before he even tripped over a recall of a long-distance train ride, a cross-country break with some of his friends from academy, as a way of celebrating graduation. 

Given how cash-strapped they all had been, the train had been the cheapest option. But in the end it didn’t matter, buzzed as they had been from the crates of beer that made up half their luggage. The booze and the raucous company had been enough to retcon the threadbare seats with pancaked sponge stuffing and locked metal arms digging into his back. 

Thankfully, Sonny now made enough that he could afford his own compartment, which allowed him just enough stretch of his gangly legs over the edge of the bunk. Saying that, it also meant that he didn’t make enough to catch a flight from Chicago to Des Moines, which had turned out prohibitively expensive. 

Even on Spirit, where the cheapness of the ticket was not enough to offset the bill for the chiropractor after. 

“Fucking eight hours,” Sonny lamented outloud as he pulled his elbow to release the tension on his neck. In a way, taking the night train meant that he was spared the worry of how to fill his time. But on the other hand, the last thing he needed after a grueling four-day law conference was an uneasy night on a rocking train. 

At one point, he would have committed insubordination in order to get one good night’s sleep in his own bed, surrounded by a fort made of his own pillows. 

And he had come so close too, Sonny inwardly groaned at the thought as he pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the throbbing at the back of his skull. 

Sonny had literally been packing his bags to catch a plane back to New York the next morning when he had received a call from Boss Lady Hadid, asking him to look at a domestic violence case. 

“It is a complicated case Carisi, and it isn’t this office’s first brush with this guy,” she barked down the line, slicing straight through Sonny’s fatigue. 

A repeat offender that got away the first time? Sign him the fuck up. 

“Details?” 

“You should be getting the file any time now.” 

Almost on cue, there was a knock at his door, which made Carisi almost jump out of his skin. Carisi answered it while surreptitiously glancing around the room with shifty eyes as if hoping to spot some kind of recording device. 

Sonny was never the paranoid type, but Hadid did seem to have an uncanny knack for knowing what he was up to. 

“Got it?” 

“Yeah chief I do,” Sonny replied, tearing into the FedEx packaging and shaking out a thick manila file. Flipping it open, Sonny ran a finger down the details, reading them out under his breath, his mind processing the facts into a mental list of bullet points. 

Until he came to the name of the ADA that had previously handled the case, and all his thoughts came to a screeching halt. A virtual nine-car pile-up that weighed like a rock on his chest. 

“You can see who the former prosecutor was, it was…” 

Barba. 

It was Barba that had taken this case to court. Taken it and lost. 

Sonny cleared his throat. 

“Yeah I see Miss Hadid. I guess I could call him up…” 

“Actually, I heard that your old mentor isn’t that far from where you are now. Why don’t you pay him a visit and get some insight? Apparently, he is a man in demand these days.” 

Sonny knew that for a fact, although by rights he shouldn’t have. Liv had told him that Barba was in Iowa doing work for someone with a double-barreled name heading an important sounding government department; mentioned it to him offhand when he had handed her some of his Ma’s soup. 

“But my flight…” Sonny started to protest weakly, the file dangling like a lead weight at the end of his arm. 

“Moved to Tuesday morning,” she said briskly. “I figured you wouldn’t mind a few more days away from New York. You will have to find your own way to Des Moines, but that shouldn’t be an issue right Carisi?” 

Of course it was, but Carisi knew better than to answer back. Hadid always had a way of phrasing things to make it sound like she was doing _him_ the favour. 

Hence why he was on this train, due to arrive in Des Moines just before 9 am, with a rental waiting just outside the station. After some finagling, Carisi had managed to get the address of Barba’s temporary office, located just outside the central business district. 

Knowing the former ADA, Carisi bet he would have been first in. But after eight hours in cramped quarters, Sonny would be damned if he went to see Barba before he had a decent shower and a shave. 

Two years and one job change later, and Carisi still wanted to impress him. How sad was that? 

No, no, he wasn’t going to think like that, Sonny chastised himself with a shake of his head. If Barba had still been part of the office, he wouldn’t have been his peer but he would have been his colleague. 

A colleague asking another colleague for help, simple right? 

Except nothing with Barba was ever simple, nothing ever would be. 

“Three days,” Carisi muttered to himself as he ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up further. It was only three days, Carisi thought.

What was the worst that could happen in three days? 

Sonny sighed as he drew up the blinds an inch so he could gauge the weather, his breath coming out easier when he saw only a scattering of clouds above a peach-gold seam outlining the horizon. It made his thoughts turn more positive and strengthened his resolve. 

It was a new day. 

***

One blisteringly hot shower, a change of clothes and a 20-minute power nap later and Sonny felt almost human. In fact, he almost felt like his usual self as he parked his car near Des Moines City Hall. 

If Google Maps were to be believed, Barba’s office was somewhere between City Hall and the courthouses a couple blocks down. 

Checking his watch as he walked past the Beaux-Arts style building, Carisi noted that it had just turned 3:45 pm. Hence why he supposed the streets weren’t as busy as they might have been for a Friday afternoon. Or maybe a lot of people had decided to skive off early and stretch it to a long weekend, who knows. 

But what Carisi did know was that he just had enough time to swing by a nearby cafe he had also found on Maps to pick up coffee and some pastries. Back in New York, it had been a dependable gift to bribe his way into Barba’s good graces. 

It had also been a roundabout way of getting into his pants, but Carisi mentally slapped himself for the slight dirty slip his mind had taken. 

However, he reasoned that relationships, any deep relationship no matter how brief, would always leave a lasting impression on you. A scar on your soul so to speak. 

And the accompaniment to theirs had always been caffeine and sugared kisses. 

He took a scalding sip of his coffee as he balanced the egg carton tray on his forearm, trying his best not to lose his grip on his briefcase. The lift in the building was surprisingly sleek and modern, one of those pre-set deals where the floor was programmed at the lobby. 

It saved him having to balance his coffee cup on his head, but there was something still so disconcerting about not having any buttons to press. 

But that feeling morphed into something spikier when the doors opened and he came face-to-face with the glass doors to Barba’s office. 

Well, technically it was not _Barba’s_ office. He was taking a corner in the law firm that had been hired to oversee this case of election fraud. But having other people around at least meant that Barba couldn’t throw him out without creating a scene. 

Carisi felt a trickle of sweat down his back and twinge low in his belly, which he was sure had nothing to do with the mustard-slathered Reuben he had for lunch. 

Look, he had tried to give Barba a heads up that he was coming, but dropping a hasty text seemed inadequate, plus he might have missed it. 

So, Sonny tried to do the proper thing and set up an actual appointment through his office, but hadn’t gotten further than a tired receptionist, who said she would pass the message along to his secretary. 

Something in her voice though hadn’t given Carisi much hope. 

Well, at least he managed to get Barba’s schedule out of her, which was how he knew that Barba had to be in the office on Friday afternoons for an end-of-week meeting between all the lawyers on this case. 

It sounded like a joke almost. What do you call a group of lawyers talking about election fraud? 

Whatever it was, Barba would likely come out of the meeting cranky and in search of his coffee-fix. And Carisi would be waiting in the lobby like he was doing now, for all intents and purposes an overqualified UberEats delivery boy. 

“Detective Carisi?” 

Sonny spun around at the sound of a familiar voice calling his name. He felt his shoulders relax when he came face-to-face with a pair of soft brown eyes and sweet smile, framed by a cloud of dark hair. 

“Carmen?” Carisi said her name in an exhale of relief. He could have kissed her given what a comforting sight she was stepping through the doors with an armful of files. 

“Are you the person who tried to make an appointment with Mr Barba?” She asked with a questioning tilt of her head. “The front desk passed us a note, but we didn’t know any Carathee.” 

It was time like this Sonny cursed that accent of his. The receptionist must have been more tired than he first thought. 

“Yeah, that was me,” he said with a sigh. “Is he in?” 

“He should be out of the meeting soon. You can come wait in his office,” Carmen said, after shooting the receptionist a look that told her that she would vouch for him. 

Carisi obediently followed her deeper into the office, the heels of his burnished Aldens sinking into the inch-thick pile of the expensive carpeting. He walked past corners defined by dark oak furniture and low tables, copies of _The American Lawyer_ , _Forbes_ and _Time_ artfully arranged in a geometric fan. 

Whatever it was, Sonny was glad that he had chosen to wear the more expensive of his two suits, his waistcoat hugging his ribcage and matched with an orange silk tie with white dots. 

“Have you been keeping well Carmen?” 

She smiled at him over her shoulder as she unlocked the door to Barba’s office. 

“I have been good, thanks for asking,” she said, putting the keys down with a loud clatter on the desk. The minute her hands were free, Carisi passed her a steaming cup of coffee, muttering under his breath that he had bought extra. 

Carmen found herself touched by the gesture, reminding her why she had always had a fondness for Carisi. He was so different from so many of his peers that barely acknowledged her, only seeing her as the ADA’s dragon lady. 

“Have a seat Detective. Oh wait, it’s ADA now isn’t it Mr Carisi?” Carmen corrected herself, a finger on her pursed lips, a knowing smile tugging at the corners. 

Sonny shot her a rueful smile as he rubbed the back of his neck in an extremely “aww shucks” manner. 

“I forget that place leaks like a Church roof,” Sonny replied, taking a seat on the sofa in front of her desk. 

“How long have you been out here with him?” 

“For as long as he has. The timing was ideal actually, I didn’t feel like staying after ADA Stone left.” 

Carisi bit the inside of his lip when she raised her eyes to meet his for the briefest moment before falling away. For a few minutes the only sound in the room was the shuffling of papers and the occasional muted graze of her nails against the desk. 

Carmen was a professional and not the type to tell tales out of school. But even though Sonny had been on okay terms with Peter Stone, a part of him instinctively knew that he didn’t fit in, although to his credit he tried. 

But his approach had been simply too bullheaded, hard-nosed without any of the compassion that Barba had tempered his own ironclad principles with. 

Plus, that hidden infatuation with the Lieu had been kinda weird. 

“When Mr Barba heard I was leaving, he asked me to come down here to help him,” she finished casually. As if it was completely normal to move halfway across the country just because your old boss asked you to. 

Sonny put a lot of stock in loyalty, which was why he appreciated her allegiance to Barba greatly. 

“I wonder why I didn’t see you there when I moved over…” Sonny started but trailed off when he heard a familiar sound come from the hallway, which got louder with each passing second. 

Carisi knew who it was before he had even turned to look. Barba had a very distinct gait, the tread of his footsteps thudding with authority. 

Every step saying “Either keep up with me or get the fuck out of my way”. 

“Carmen can you get these minutes typed…” 

Barba stopped short when he almost walked straight into Carisi’s chest. The younger man instinctively took a step back, a part of him thinking that it would be indecent if his first in person contact with Barba in over a year was a body-to-body collision. 

“Carisi?” 

Barba sounded as if he had seen a ghost. But that didn’t diminish the static fuzz beneath his skin at hearing that voice say his name again. He had spoken to the older man occasionally on the phone after he left, but he never realised how much he had missed hearing the low tenor rumble of Barba’s voice, until it wasn’t a regular part of his life. 

And Carisi had the experience of not just hearing professional, brass balls Barba. He had heard that voice filled with desire, raspy from chest-deep chuckles and scratchy from just having woken up. 

Another intimate detour his mind could not stop. Dammit. 

“Hey Counselor. Surprised?” Carisi joked weakly, his arms splayed outward in a weak imitation of a song and dance man. 

“Quite,” Barba answered with a quirk of his eyebrow, whatever emotion he had earlier displayed at being caught out gone in a flash. “Whether pleasant or otherwise still remains to be seen, I guess.”

“Back to the insults huh Barba? If it wasn’t for the beard, I would think we were back in New York,” Carisi parried, but his tone was more good natured than Barba’s had been. 

It did the trick though, judging by how the hard look in Barba’s eyes suddenly relented. Of all the things Carisi had learned about his former lover, the most valuable had been the best way to deal with Barba being a snarky dick. Earnestness was often a better rebuke, and disarmed more effectively than sarcasm. 

“I take it you were the mysterious Carathee that was trying to see me?” 

Carisi actually flinched. 

“But I am busy Carisi, so just step into my room and say your piece. I don’t have much time,” Barba said, but the brisk way he said it told Carisi that he wasn’t actually trying to get him to leave. 

“Sure, sure,” Carisi said, following him right behind him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Carmen give him a smile that seemed to simultaneously wish him good luck and root him on. 

“Okay Carisi, what is it you want?” Barba said as he shrugged off his suit jacket and hung it on a coat hook by his desk. It didn’t go unnoticed by Sonny that Barba hadn’t really asked him how he was, but then he had never been one for small talk. 

Instead of answering, Carisi just silently handed over an extra strong Americano and a twist-top paper bag that contained a pain au chocolat and a flaky spicy sausage roll. 

After a beat of hesitation, Barba accepted both, his features softening when he opened the bag and realised that Sonny still remembered his favourites. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly, flipping open the plastic lid and pulling the pastry out of the bag. It became clear to Sonny that Barba had most likely missed lunch. 

“You’re welcome Barba,” Carisi murmured, shifting a chair with his foot so he could sit down. As he rummaged in his bag for the file, he looked up through his lashes at Barba’s attempt to not just scoff it all down. 

Tired. The former ADA looked tired. However, Carisi was glad to see that there was a lightness about him that had been missing before. When Barba was in a rare, genuinely good mood, it filled up corners and automatically made people feel less anxious in general. 

Towards the end of his tenure, they hadn’t really interacted much, but when they did Sonny could not help but feel concerned at how ragged Barba had looked. It was clear to him that it wasn’t just normal work stress weighing the prosecutor down. 

But at that point Sonny hadn’t been in a position where he could offer comfort. 

Now though…

He almost looked like a new person. His white shirt still fit snugly across his broad chest, and Sonny swore he had seen those suspenders and that blue and brown striped regimental tie before. 

But his dark hair was now gilded silver that caught the harsh office lighting. The beard may have been frowned upon in a New York court, but it gave him an air of distinction. 

Barba was still well put together, but there was a hint of scruff around the edges now that made him even sexier. Despite the prickly attitude, people had always been naturally attracted to Barba and he didn’t have to do much to impress you. 

Hell, his most effective pick-up line had probably been “ _Hi, I am Rafael Barba_ ”. 

This was so diametrically opposite to Sonny whose first impression was almost always Staten Island smartass. 

“Alright Carisi, how can I help you?” Barba said, his tone more affable now, dusting the crumbs from his hands as he rested his feet on top of his desk. A part of Sonny twinged in fondness at the habitual action. 

At Barba’s question, Carisi straightened up and placed the folder in front of the other man. 

“I would like any help you can give me about a case of yours. People vs Paul Rollison, a DV that turned into ugly. The victim ended up in a wheelchair because he broke her spine after slamming her against the kitchen island.” 

Carisi paused and watched. He watched Barba’s eyes go muddy as he laid out the details, each word probably twisting the knife made of old hurts deeper. It was his only outward reaction to the cruelty clinically detailed out on the paper.

Both men had learned long ago how to protect themselves against the horror, but that didn’t mean it got easier to deal with. 

“Maya. Her name was Maya,” Barba said quietly. Carisi didn’t miss that despite his calm impression how tightly he was holding on to his fountain pen. The younger man winced as Barba dug the pad of his thumb into the clip. 

“Barba, you did your best…” 

“She killed herself Carisi,” Barba snapped, throwing the folder down with more force than necessary. “Took a bottle of pills and drowned herself in her bathtub.” 

“That wasn’t on you Rafael,” Carisi said, his tone soft on the older man’s first name. But it wasn’t him trying to bank on their previous intimate connection, rather he wanted to bring Barba back to himself, to stop him sinking into that dark void that Carisi often found himself staring into as well. 

It worked, somewhat, as he heard Barba give a deep exhale, as if trying to exorcise his demons. 

“If you wanted details on this, you could have just called or emailed me you know,” Barba said, with a touch of his earlier brusqueness. 

“Well, I was in Chicago, and my boss said I might as well visit you and get the facts straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak,” Carisi said, with a slight embarrassed inflection. But he wasn’t prepared for the hard look Barba shot him, which cut him to the quick. 

“So you came halfway across the country to remind me of my failures?” Barba gave an angry sneer that almost sounded like a snarl. “Never knew you were capable of being that vindictive Carisi.” 

“What? Wait…” 

“Seriously Carisi, why are you wasting my time, your time for this? If I couldn’t get this guy in jail, what makes you think you can?”

“He married her sister!” 

Carisi blurted the fact out just to stop the volley of spikes that Barba kept throwing at him, clipping him as he tried to get a word in edgewise. 

Barba froze as he took in what the younger man had just told him. Carisi could see the wheels in his head turn as he unclenched his fists.

“The one that testified how he was the sweetest guy alive, and that her sister was a frigid, controlling bitch?” Barba said, but now his words were eerily calm. Well, Carisi supposed it was better than full on hellfire and brimstone. 

“Neighbours called it in last week. Hospital found hairline fractures in her hands, bone chips in her elbow, and heavily bruised ribs. Preliminary reports say she may have come in contact with the wrong end of her table or maybe…” 

Carisi took a deep breath. 

“Maybe a kitchen island,” he finished quietly. Barba’s eyes instantly darkened. 

“She says she slipped and fell, but some of the injuries were partially healed. Her x-ray was a mess. Hadid, my boss, she wants me to do some due-d prep on this and send it to her over the weekend.” 

Carisi leaned forward and put both hands on Barba’s table, his mouth set in a grim line. 

“So help me Barba. Help me put this bastard in jail for the rest of his life. We can’t get him for Maya, but at least we can get some kind of justice for her,” Sonny said. 

Sonny saw it, saw the briefest microshift in Barba’s expression that made him think that he had gotten through to him. For all the things he was, Barba was not unreasonable, and he was a crusader. Just like Sonny was. 

“You’re right Carisi,” Barba said, his voice much softer now. “And I would really like to help, but honestly I don’t know how I can because I just don’t have time to give you anything more than surface level info.” 

Almost as if on cue, Carisi heard a sharp rap on the door behind him. 

“To give you more, it would require more time than I have to spare. I will most likely be working over the weekend, and even today I have to make a stop at this woman’s house on the way home, she apparently said something about finding fake ballot boxes.” 

Carisi frowned as he watched Barba start to put all his things into his briefcase. 

“Why are you doing this? Seems a bit beneath you Counselor,” Carisi asked, but he wasn’t being condescending, rather he was concerned. He saw Barba’s hands stutter as they picked up his notebook and felt that concern deepen. 

“I don’t trust anyone around here,” Barba muttered under his breath. It then struck Carisi what a delicate position Barba was probably in, an outsider brought to oversee people in an office that didn’t know him, who probably didn’t know whether to treat him as an expert or a snitch. 

And God damn, didn’t Carisi know a thing or two about that. 

“Then let me drive you at least Barba to where you need to go. Unless…” Carisi trailed off as he cocked an eyebrow at the older man. “You dusted off your driving licence?” 

Barba rolled his eyes so hard it looked like it hurt. 

“Snide jab about my driving skills aside Carisi, I don’t want to bother you. Surely Vanessa Hadid didn’t send you here to be my Uber driver,” Barba remarked. 

“Look,” Carisi started throwing his hands up. “It’s the least I can do for invading your office unannounced on a Friday afternoon asking for help.” 

“I thought that was what the coffee and pastries were for. Unless there was something else you were trying to achieve,” Barba said flippantly. But as it sunk in what he had actually said, Rafael felt a flush beneath his collar that he quickly tried to cover by shrugging on his suit jacket. 

But Carisi saw it and his breath stilled at the back of his throat. 

Barba remembered. 

“Shall we go then?” Carisi said with a cough as he tried to gloss over the moment. 

Barba gave a firm nod as he gathered his things and walked out the door, after wishing Carmen a good weekend. Carisi followed right behind, but not before sharing a small smile with her. 

“Thank you,” he mouthed, which she waved off. 

But that beat of awkwardness persisted even after they got into Carisi’s rental. For most of the journey, the only sound in the car was a synthesized male voice giving Sonny directions. 

At first Sonny was glad that he had to concentrate on Waze, it gave him an excuse to not start up a conversation with Barba. But it didn’t take them long to leave the city’s tight corners behind, the roads gradually widening and lengthening until it was just one long stretch, flanked by corn fields on either side. 

Every once in a while, Sonny would steal side glances at Barba, wondering if he had fallen asleep. Only to find him leaning against his hand as he stared out the window, the still cut of his profile the only constant against the moving background. 

It was Sonny though that eventually spoke first. He was never the type to stay silent anyway, and the heaviness between them made the small space in the car even more claustrophobic. 

“Hey, so you never really asked me how it has been going with the new job and all. Even before this. And here I was thinking we were friends Barba,” Sonny broached casually, keeping his tone light. 

To his credit, Barba didn’t flinch or flounder at Carisi’s sudden comment, his gaze fixed on the sky that was slowly turning gold. 

“We were a lot of things Sonny,” Barba replied cryptically, not so easily baited. But whether he realised it or not, the slip of his name told Carisi that Barba wasn’t entirely unaffected by them sitting so close together. 

“Plus, Liv has kept me fairly updated on the goings on back in New York. And I know Hadid’s reputation, so I could kinda guess that you’ve been under the whip Carisi.” 

Barba had course corrected back to Carisi again, but Sonny would not have his question brushed aside so easily. 

“Yeah, but you’ve not heard from me directly though,” Sonny said deliberately.  
That comment got him for sure, and he saw Barba noticeably shift in his seat out of the corner of his eye. 

“To be honest, I didn’t know if you wanted me chiming in on your cases like some know-it-all professor. I mean, didn’t I pick apart your cases enough when I was your ADA?” Barba said, finally turning to Carisi sporting the smallest of smirks. 

The jibe was soft enough, but it was so familiar that Carisi found himself more charmed than offended. But before he could respond, Waze broke the moment by announcing that he had to turn right. 

“We’re here,” Carisi announced as he pulled up to an old farmhouse. After he killed the engine, Barba shot him a questioning look when Carisi reached for his bag. 

‘What do you think you are doing?” 

“What do you mean, what am I doing? I am going up there with you that’s what,” Carisi said determinedly. “I know you joked about it earlier Barba, but I am not waiting in the car like I am your Uber driver.”

“I thought you said you were okay with that?” Barba said curtly as he stepped out of the car. 

“Ha, ha. Seriously though, maybe I can help. We can do good cop, bad cop. Or in this case, good lawyer, bad lawyer,” Carisi said with a smile that was half exasperation and half still asking for permission. 

“Can I help you gentleman?” 

Both men turned at the sound of a slamming door and heavy boots on wood. Looking up over the roof of the car, Sonny could just make out a wiry sixty-something year old woman, dressed in worn blue denim with her auburn streaked hair up in a messy bun. 

Judging by the glower on her face and her tight grip on her phone, Sonny was pretty sure they were one wrong remark away from her calling the cops. 

“Mrs Carson? I am Rafael Barba from the election commission office. You called in something about finding ballot boxes?” 

At Barba’s introduction, Sonny saw her jaw relax but noted that the look of distrust didn’t completely leave her eyes. He could pretty much guess that she probably didn’t have the best of experiences with men in suits pulling up to her front door. 

“Oh yeah, you boys are kinda late aren’t you?” She remarked with an accusatory twist to her mouth. “I mean it’s almost dinner time.” 

Barba shot her a look that was almost comical. 

“It’s six.”

Her hands immediately went to her hips and Carisi almost half expected her to unleash the dogs as he mentally face-palmed. He needed to do something. 

“Which means, of course, we probably caught you just as you are getting things ready aren’t you ma’am?” Sonny stepped in smoothly, coming around the car so he could stand right next to Barba. 

Rafael glared when the taller man gave him a subtle nudge with his shoulder. He had seen Carisi in action enough that he knew where this was going. 

“Truly we are sorry to bother you Mrs Carson, but dealing with bureaucrats takes time. Red tape you know,” Sonny said with a small shrug of his shoulders, modulating his accent so that he sounded more boyish than usual. 

Sonny Carisi, truly the last boy scout when needed. 

“So if you would just give us your account. We will be out of your hair and you can get back to dinner,” Sonny said with a smile, his blue eyes wide and earnest as he pulled out his notebook. 

That smile, it was trouble, whether Sonny knew it or not. 

It worked though, as her demeanour shifted to something clearly more open, which Barba noted with more than a hint of frustration. But whatever means to an end he supposed. 

For a few minutes, Sonny furiously took notes as Barba asked questions. But following on from Carisi’s lead, his voice was purposely pitched lower, which thinned out any of his previous harshness. 

From beginning to end, the whole encounter only took 20 minutes. However, it wasn’t until they were back on the highway that Barba realised that he had been holding his breath. 

His beard may have been his effort to blend in, but sometimes it came back to him in stark clarity that it would never be that easy. 

“I honestly thought at one point she was going to shoot us,” Carisi piped up, which made Barba’s head snap to the side. This was followed up by a chuckle that reverberated from inside his chest that went on for longer than he thought it would. 

It was like releasing a pressure valve, and Barba found himself laughing right along, infectious and belly deep. Soon both of them had a bad case of the church giggles that almost doubled them over. 

“Don’t you think you laid the boy-next-door act a little thick though Sonny?” Rafael said once he caught his breath back, wiping tears from his eyes. 

Carisi’s hands tightened around the wheel, but he just shrugged as if to say “it worked”. 

“You don’t honestly think she has stuffed ballot boxes hidden in her field do you?” 

Barba snorted. 

“Fuck no, you know as well as I do how rare real election fraud is. But the person in charge wants every drawstring pulled on this one, so we are chasing every lead.” 

“Sounds like a lot of legwork for one person,” Sonny said carefully, as he shifted the map on his Waze around as pretence of doing something with his hands. But he was watching Barba’s reaction to his words very carefully. 

The truth was, he didn’t want this to be the end. Never mind that Hadid would have reamed him out for wasting his time. 

The thing was, he didn’t want this to be the last face-to-face conversation he would have with Barba for months. He didn’t want to go back to just phone calls and sporadic dinners, where weeks would pass and they were barely blips in each other’s lives. 

This want, Carisi wasn’t sure where it was coming from. 

“This is me Carisi,” Barba announced as they pulled up to a modest double-storey house with a long pathway. It only took Sonny one look at the wide lawn and the semi-modern architecture for him to understand why Barba had chosen this place. 

After years of living in a shoebox in the sky, sometimes the heart yearned for the feel of solid ground and grass. 

“Well, I suppose… this is it then Barba,” Carisi said, putting the car into park. 

“I suppose it is Carisi,” Barba said, smoothing down the lapels of his suit as he flicked the catch of his seatbelt. “Sorry it was a wasted trip.” 

Carisi shook his head vehemently. 

“No it wasn’t,” he said simply, his eyes never wavering from Rafael’s. For a moment he thought he saw a flicker of regret in those hazel eyes, but it was gone so quickly it might have just been his imagination. 

Without a word, Barba took his bag and got out of the car, closing the door behind him with a dull thud. Leaving Carisi staring at the space where Barba had been sitting previously. 

Taking a deep breath, Carisi closed his eyes only to have them fly back open at the sound of the car door being yanked open. 

“Carisi!” 

Sonny turned with an expectant look on his face.

“Eight-thirty am. Don’t be late. If we finish early, I will go over the case with you,” Barba said evenly, with just a hint of arrogance that told Sonny he should be grateful.

“And dinner is on you.” 

And with that, Barba firmly closed the car door in Sonny’s face. 

***  
Sonny would never tell Rafael this, but he dreamed about him. Dreams that left him feeling either horny or in love. But he wondered since the dreams all centered on one person, whether that meant he was horny in love. 

Sonny allowed himself a small laugh as he settled in for the night. The sheets felt scratchy against his skin, which happened with cheap cotton that had been exposed to multiple rounds of hot starch and industrial strength washing powder. 

But the pillows were down soft and Sonny was just glad that the room was not moving. 

Those dreams though, they were so vivid that it often worried him. Dreams of Rafael cupping his face with those large hands and kissing him, deep and slow. Those sort of kisses had been so rare when they had actually been together. 

Their jobs and the fact that they hadn’t put a name to what they had been doing meant that most of their encounters were quick and in the shadows. A quick fuck against the wall of the breakroom, Rafael moaning in his ear as Sonny pressed him against the brick. Or Barba casually giving him a handjob in his office before licking Sonny’s come off his thumb. 

But there had been moments though that made Sonny wonder. Rafael catching him by the knot of his tie and pulling him close for a kiss that he remembered for days. 

Carisi sighed, since when had he become so nostalgic? Never mind, the most important thing now was the case and getting Barba to go through it with him. 

It was that thought he held on to as he closed his eyes. 

Tomorrow, he would worry about it tomorrow.


	2. ~Day Two~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello wonderful people. Thank you to all those people who commented and left kudos. You people are awsome ^^ 
> 
> Please enjoy Day 2, I really liked writing parts of this, while others drove me up the wall a bit. But I hope that it came out okay. Disclaimer, I am not a lawyer and a lot of my election fraud knowledge comes from segments on Last Week Tonight XD so apologies. I also do not have a beta so the mistakes are my own *bows* 
> 
> I also have a definite deadline for this fic. I want to finish it before the 20th of this month so fingers crossed. 
> 
> Enough babbling, please enjoy and comments and kudos are <3

***

_Our days were buried in small lies_  
_So that we could fight our doubts_  
_Our hearts know the meaning of losing each other_

***

When Barba had initially agreed to take this election job, his aim had been very clear. Leave New York, leave sex crimes, leave all the complicated dark feelings that were part and parcel of being a prosecutor in that specific field. 

It meant he could bring with him the only things that mattered. His friendship with Liv, his relationship with his mother that would forever be a work in progress. 

It allowed him to also leave behind the bitterness, the near-constant anger. And in the mix of it, it also gave him the excuse to leave behind his relationship with Carisi, slippery and shapeless as it was. 

But somehow, his past was now chattering away a mile a minute next to him. Hands theatrically waving in the air, sparking some concern in Barba that at one point they might have missed their turning. 

“So this perp right? Well he tried to mouth off to Rollins and I swear I forgot I was an ADA for a second and…” 

Barba pressed a fingertip against his temple as he tried to grasp what exactly was the point of the story he was being told in that garish Staten Island accent. But the only thing in his thoughts at that moment was a story he once read about a monk travelling west with an unruly monkey god, who he tamed by whacking across the back of his head with a paper fan. 

God, what he would give for a paper fan. 

“Oh shit, missed a turning.” 

Everything, Barba would have given everything. 

“Maybe you should concentrate on the road Carisi, we have two more of these visits to make. And I should make it clear that my cut off time is eight pm. We finish any later than that and you write your draft to Hadid on your own,” Barba said shortly. 

That shut him up for sure, but Carisi was no longer the overeager newbie with a fledgling law career who badly wanted his approval. Well, maybe he still valued Barba’s approval, but he wasn’t as reverential as he once was. 

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have muttered “God, you don’t have to be an ass about it” quite so audibly under his breath. 

It should have made Barba annoyed, which is why he was surprised when he was filled with mild regret instead. He genuinely did feel a bit bad at how curt he had been with Sonny the entire time. 

Especially since he hadn’t really done anything wrong. Carisi had shown up at Barba’s house five minutes before he had to, with two steaming cups of coffee in his hand. He did all the navigating and driving, while Barba just sat in the passenger seat feeding him the addresses and bare details on who they were meeting. 

Barba supposed his irritation stemmed from what he had been feeling earlier, about having his past land right back on his doorstep. That, and the fact that late nights were dangerous when it came to the two of them. 

It had been one late night at his office when Carisi had crowded him at his desk and asked whether he could kiss him. How after that, whether he could bring him home and fuck him. 

Their arrangement, as they had eventually called it, had been rooted in practicality. It made sense, they both had taxing jobs that not everybody understood, they barely had time to breathe, let alone date. And after the first time, it became clear to both men how sexually compatible they were. 

That was an understatement, Carisi had made him come so hard that he damn near blacked out. 

There would be weeks where they would be together every night, sharing a carton of take-out over stacks of files. On the flipside, there were times where they would not be together for months, only to have one of them show up at the other’s door, way too liquored up to make any kind of rational decisions. 

Eventually though, those kinds of encounters became rarer and more spaced out. Until one day, Sonny just stopped coming around entirely. 

And Rafael convinced himself he was fine with that. 

Because, at the heart of it, Barba didn’t like anyone to have any kind of hold over him. 

But all the rational thinking in the world couldn’t stop his heart from traitorously doing a double-time skip at how put together Carisi looked. He had lost the baggy suits and raw pistachio polyester years ago, but ADA Carisi had another level of polish to him. 

He had shown up in a full suit, on a Saturday, because he said he would rather be overdressed than under. Fine, Barba was in a suit too but he had at least ditched his waistcoat and loosened his tie. 

He had wanted to tease him but lost the urge to because Carisi looked just so _good_. Everything had been tailored within an inch of his tall frame, making him look slender rather than just gangly. 

While classic navy may have been the safest choice, it set off those startling blue eyes and made his hair look argent rather than straight up grey. All of that made the contrast with his naturally boyish features even more stark. 

But then, that had always been the case with Carisi, any attempt at a distinguished profile assuaged by an affable earnestness, which infuriatingly just made him even more likeable. 

This was proven at the next house, where a curmudgeonly couple that had given Barba the cold shoulder, welcomed Carisi like he was their long lost son. 

“I completely understand your fears Mr Anderson, Mrs Anderson. I feel like the government does not know how to properly regulate investment schemes. Or more like scams,” Carisi said with a stage laugh and wink that made Barba cringe inwardly. 

However, he could not deny that Carisi’s interrogation skills were more than helpful when it came to getting people to give up information. Questions about election fraud tended to be sensitive and sailed close to the wind in terms of one’s moral compass. 

This meant people either lied, or got angry and flustered, and _then_ tried to lie. 

But judging by how the old lady was eagerly taking down the recipe for Carisi’s pasta puttanesca, she was one compliment away from pinching his cheeks.

Barba resented it sometimes, how easily some things came to the other man. Barba couldn’t offer up Zeppole and hope to be forgiven. 

Although it did amuse him somewhat pettily that the recipe Carisi was giving her was also known as prostitute’s pasta. 

Still, Barba believed in fairness above all, that feeling nudged even further along by his earlier pangs of guilt. 

“You did well,” Barba said quietly as they walked back to the car. Carisi’s shoulders stiffened as if waiting for a cutting remark to land, only to relax once he realised that it wasn’t coming. 

“What can I say, I am a hit with little old ladies,” Carisi said, his dimples appearing as he gave the older man a grin. 

“You do look good actually,” Barba slipped the observation in casually as he got into the car. Carisi awkwardly shifted in his shoes as he went round to the driver’s side. Even all this time, he never really knew how to take a barbless compliment from the older man. 

“Thanks, I had a good role model fashion-wise,” Carisi replied with a small grin when he finally got into the car. He figured that a veiled acknowledgement of Barba’s influence would go down better than a full-on admission that the prosecutor’s dressing had sparked equal parts envy and lust in him. 

But he didn’t realise that for Barba, Carisi’s comment just struck home how different they were. It was why he had always told himself that a relationship between the two of them wouldn’t work. 

Barba was highfalutin, Sunday in the Park with George, while Carisi was grassroots, going to a NY Islanders hockey game in a jersey with sleeves that were too long. 

“So, this coming up is our last stop right Barba. And since it has just turned four, I would say you will have plenty of time to help me,” Carisi said, turning on his Waze with a satisfied smirk. 

“Chickens, Carisi,” Barba admonished. But he wasn’t really annoyed, an early night with dinner paid for by someone else sounded like a small price to pay for having to help Carisi with his brief. 

“Who is it we are going to see again?” 

“Mabel Lim, she says she had been approached by some people asking very particular questions about voting in her area. Says she felt extremely uncomfortable. This is not the first time I’ve been to this area, something is definitely up,” Barba said, running a finger down the notes in front of him. 

He was so absorbed in his work that he missed Carisi glancing over at him, his expression softening as he fondly took in Barba’s profile and the absentminded way he was scratching his beard. 

Like his voice, it was something Sonny didn’t realise he had missed until he didn’t have it every other day. 

“This is it Carisi,” Barba sat forward, peering through the tinted glass at the address. 

“Nice neighbourhood,” Carisi as he pulled into a parking space right by the curb. That was an understatement, it almost looked like a leaf from a picture book about the suburbs of the American Midwest, with artistically faded fences underlined by early spring flowers. 

Their interviewee even had a white painted porch, that creaked under Carisi’s footsteps as Barba rang the doorbell. Only to be greeted by silence. 

Barba frowned and pressed the doorbell again. Only to get the same result. 

“She knows we are coming, right?” 

“She does, she chose this time. Been calling my office for weeks,” Barba replied, taking a step back so he could look at her windows and saw that her drapes were tightly drawn. 

Both men started as the door opened with a slow creak, revealing a petite woman in her mid-twenties, her dark hair up in a messy bun, face hidden behind large oval horn-rimmed glasses. 

Even though he wasn’t looking at him, Barba swore he could practically sense the tenseness radiating off Carisi’s six-foot frame. 

“Yes?” 

“Ms Lim? I am Rafael Barba from the election fraud office, this is my associate Dominick Carisi Jr., we had an appointment? To talk about some issues,” Barba said. He tried to take a step closer, but stopped when he saw her narrow the space of her doorway. 

“Right, sorry it completely slipped my mind. Do you think we can do this another day?” 

Her voice was calm, even, but something in her demeanour plucked a familiar string in Barba. It wasn’t a pleasant recollection though. It was significant enough to put aside the skitter of irritation that arose at this having been a wasted trip. 

“Sure, just give my office a call,” Barba said, handing over his card. He flinched when she grabbed it out of his fingers and quickly closed the door. 

But the unpleasant feeling did not go away, and it was when they were halfway to the car when it became clear that Carisi felt something was off too. 

“Rafael…” 

Barba was stopped in his tracks when Carisi put a hand on his arm, turning when he tugged on it. The younger man’s eyes were like stone, very much a mirror of Barba’s at that very moment. 

And then it clicked. 

“I think something happened to her,” Carisi said in a low voice. 

Of course, how could he have missed that haunted look in her eyes, the twitch in her mouth that betrayed how hard she had been biting her inner lip. His time away had blunted him to a number of instincts related to his old job, but not to this. 

“I think you are right Sonny,” Barba replied quietly. “How do you want to do this? We can’t just go up to her and ask, she will shut down.” 

“No, we have to break out the kid gloves. But we can’t leave her alone, Barba.” 

Barba swallowed and nodded. This time it was Carisi that rang the doorbell as Barba hung back. This time the door opened more violently, fueled by frustration. 

“Yes? I thought I said not today…” 

“Miss Lim, I am sorry ma’am but are you okay?” Carisi said, glimmers of his former profession coming to the surface. “Because we don’t want to leave here if you are in need of assistance.” 

“I said I am fine! I thought you two were lawyers not cops,” Mabel practically spat, her eyes wide with anger to the point where her irises were invisible. 

“I was a cop before, in New York. And Mr Barba, he used to work with me” Carisi explained gently. “We both want to make sure if you need any help, that is if you need it. Because we wouldn’t forgive ourselves if we walked away leaving you alone.” 

“What part of fuck off do you both not understand?” She said, but both men heard the reedy strain in her voice. 

“We will leave, if that is what you want. It’s true that you don’t know us from Adam, but we want to make sure that there is someone you can reach out to. We can facilitate that,” Barba spoke this time, empathy evident in the deep green of his eyes. 

Maybe it was his calmness, or Carisi’s obvious compassion, or the fact that the both of them genuinely seemed to care, but something in her broke. She crumpled against the door, tears streaming down her face as her chest became wracked with sobs. 

“Nobody will believe me if I tell them! He’s a good boy, from a good family and…”

“We do, we believe you Mabel, don’t we Rafael?” Carisi said softly, turning to him.

“Yes we do.” Now it was his turn to be gentle, to be the one gingerly handling her emotions. 

“We can take you to the hospital if you want, and we can call the local police. Or we can just call them now…” 

Mabel nodded her head dully, wiping away her tears the sleeve of her long-sleeved t-shirt.

“You will take me to the hospital? And you will stay with me?” She asked, her voice small and lost in the depths of her throat. 

Sonny exchanged a look with Rafael which he answered with a small nod. 

“Of course.” 

***

Once again, Barba came face-to-face with his past. But this time, he wasn’t chafing against it as hard as he had been earlier. In fact, it was both comforting and disheartening how familiar it all was. 

The hospital had called the local law enforcement before taking her to be tested. Through it all, Barba and Carisi just sat in the waiting room, taking in cup after cup of frankly appalling coffee. 

They had to be there until the police came, they were both her outcry witnesses. But more than that, she wanted them there, however Barba mused, probably more Sonny than himself. He was the one who was more open with his concern, more generous with his kindness.

Saying that, she had also seemed to have taken some comfort in his more quiet presence. 

They only left after the police had finished taking statements, and after her family had turned up. It turned out they had been on vacation and just gotten back, which explained why she had been alone. 

But they only really left when Mabel told them it was okay for them to go, her eyes red-rimmed but grateful, clutching both their business cards. 

By the time they got back on the road, it was already dark. But more than that, the car was dead silent as Carisi drove down the highway to Barba’s place. This time though, Barba understood the silence, how it served as a break for both of them to deal with how they were feeling. 

Although, Barba was really not sure how he was feeling. 

“Good job Carisi,” Barba finally spoke, as they got closer to his house. 

Carisi shrugged, the lights from oncoming traffic playing hide-and-seek with his profile. 

“It was both of us Barba,” he turned momentarily to flash Rafael a small smile. “You and I always did make a good team.” 

Yes, yes they did. He had almost forgotten.

As they turned into his street, Carisi took a breath so deep that Barba swore he could practically feel it ghost across his skin. 

“So, I’m gonna drop you off, then head back okay Barba?” 

Barba’s head jerked up in surprise.

“You aren’t staying?” 

“Well, since it’s almost ten,” Carisi said carefully, so it didn’t seem that he was taking the piss. “Plus, it’s been a long day, and you are probably a bit sick of me by now.” 

It was a very Carisi joke to tell, but it fell flat for Barba. 

“What about your DV case?” He asked quietly. 

Another shrug, another flash of Carisi’s profile in the flicker of headlights. 

“It’s okay, we helped someone today. At least, I hope we did,” Carisi said, shaking his head as if he had gotten off point. “Look, it is about saving who you can right? And we did that today… again, I hope we did.” 

As Carisi finished his sentence, he pulled into Barba’s driveway. Shifting the car into neutral, he turned to the older man with a resigned smile on his face.

“I will figure out the case Barba, don’t worry, but I will probably call you though. Don’t think you will get away that easily Counselor.” 

There was no arguing, no insistence that he keep to his word. Carisi had accepted Barba’s petty, arbitrary rules like they were gospel. 

Barba was highfalutin, Carisi was grassroots, but at their core, they both believed in the same thing. 

“Don’t be stupid, park your car and come in Carisi. I will order a late supper and we should be able to knock out your brief for Hadid in a couple of hours,” Barba said tersely, but there was no real sting to it. 

Carisi’s jaw dropped a little, and he quickly became flustered under Barba’s expectant look. 

“I thought I was buying dinner,” he answered feebly. Barba arched an eyebrow at him. 

“Do you have a stack of takeout menus stuffed down your trousers? Didn’t think so,” Barba smirked when Carisi shook his head. “Now grab your things before I change my mind.” 

Barba had to bite back a smile as he watched Carisi scramble to grab his laptop and files out of the car before following him into the house. 

They decided to set up on the marble-topped island in Barba’s kitchen, which was minimalist like the rest of the house. But the amount of space in there made Carisi’s heart swell with envy. 

“The meals I could cook in here,” Carisi damn near sighed as he ran a hand over the fixtures. 

“As tempting as that is, I have no interest in eating at midnight,” Barba remarked as he rummaged through a drawer. “So, Thai or Japanese?” 

Both eventually decided on some Japanese fusion bowls, before Carisi asked Barba rather sheepishly whether he could take a quick shower. But Barba didn’t really seem to mind and just simply handed him a towel before pointing him in the direction of his guest bathroom. 

Given that he didn’t have any other clothes, Carisi was forced to put on what he had on before, but lost his jacket, waistcoat and tie. But as he plodded back into the kitchen in his powder blue shirt, he was surprised to see a damp-haired Barba still in his trousers and collared white shirt, albeit it with his suspenders dangling from his waist. 

At Carisi’s questioning look, Barba simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “We are still working right? So work clothes it is.” 

To be frank, Carisi wasn’t complaining. He always did have a fondness for post-shower Barba, warm and blurred around the edges, smelling of grapefruit and patchouli. 

Carisi snapped back to attention when Barba gave a cough, his cheeks heating a little when he realised he had let himself drift off on another reverie. Barba had grabbed his pen and notepad, and motioned to the paper bags on the table. 

“Food’s here, let’s get to work.” 

That was how they found themselves two hours later, Carisi perched on one of Barba’s barstools as he tapped away studiously on his laptop. Barba had chosen to drag one of his dining room chairs into the kitchen so he mull over his notes in his favourite position, with his feet firmly up on the kitchen side table. 

“So getting Maya’s sister to testify would be damn near impossible I get it,” Barba said, tapping his pen against his pad. 

“Yeah, given how reticent Lillian was at the hospital, I doubt she will be so forthcoming,” Carisi said pinching the bridge of his nose. He sighed as he picked up the last piece of fried chicken from his bowl, using it to mop up the remaining dregs of nori-flecked mayonnaise. 

“Look Carisi, the brief is pretty much done. You will just need to ask the squad to talk to Lillian a bit more, press her a bit.” 

“Fine Barba, but you gotta give me something about this guy. You cross-examined him, what was he like? Does he have any tells, any triggers?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary Carisi. He is your typical misogynist, who is charming when he needs to be but a violent bastard when provoked. He severely injured Maya after finding out she secretly had an abortion.” 

Carisi, whose eyes had been closed at that point, flew open at the mention of “abortion”. 

“Do you think he got mad at Lillian too because of something along those lines?” 

Carisi saw Barba sit up as a lightbulb went off above his head too. 

“Ask SVU to check her medical records. See if she had any unexplained hospital visits, or to a clinic or something. Then see if you can use it.” 

Carisi almost wanted to slap the table, because he was sure now that he had something he could work with. He was about to tell Barba as much, when he saw the other hold a hand up to shush him. 

Immediately all of Carisi’s cop instincts switched to high-alert, his hand automatically falling to his beltline as if still expecting to find a gun there. 

It was then he heard it, a soft tinkling of a bell followed by a plaintive meow. 

Carisi let out a sigh of relief, as Barba opened his kitchen door to let in a small tiger-striped kitty about the size of a loaf of bread, who admonished him with a loud meow. He patted her as she trotted over on ballet-like paws to an empty dish before decisively planting herself next to it. 

“Since when do you have a cat Barba?” Carisi said, more than a little charmed as he watched the older man fill her bowl before affectionately scratching her behind her ears. Carisi did not fail to notice that her eyes were green, almost the exact same shade as Barba’s. 

“She just showed up one day, and no matter what I did, she just hung around despite my best efforts,” Rafael said chuckled softly. “Apparently, I am a sucker for that.” 

There was something about the almost pointed way Barba said the last sentence that made Carisi feel a sudden tightness in his chest. It intensified when Barba met his eyes for the briefest moment before turning away. 

And just like that, Carisi detected the smallest of shifts in the air around them. 

When Barba looked at him like that it felt as if someone was physically squeezing his ribcage. 

But Barba broke the spell by getting to his feet and briskly brushing down his trousers. 

“Anyways enough about Tora here. We are almost there Carisi,” Barba said, turning Carisi’s laptop towards himself so he could read what was on the screen. 

Carisi mentally shook himself so he could focus back on the case. 

“Right, right. Do you think we would be able to show a pattern of behaviour? Or would that be more prejudicial than probative?” 

Barba chewed on his bottom lip as he scanned through Carisi’s document. 

“You can try Carisi, but it’s a double-edged sword. Defense will then bring in the not guilty verdict from Maya’s case.”

Carisi’s gut churned as he thought about the potential pitfalls, but his resolve was fortified by all of what this case had going for them too. 

“I can work with that. I can argue that,” Carisi said firmly, furiously typing in the last few sentences, driven by a sudden spurt of adrenaline. 

“Can you?” Barba asked quietly. 

Carisi’s fingers faltered. 

But Sonny knew Rafael wasn’t mocking him or challenging him in this instance. He knew this tone of voice, this was Barba asking him whether he was ready to enter the dragon’s den, armed with a shield that he wasn’t entirely sure was fireproof. 

“I have to, won't I?” Carisi responded just as quietly, but with a clear confidence shoring up his words. When he turned to gauge Barba’s reaction, he was almost stunned by what he saw. 

Something in those jade green eyes that looked almost like… _pride_. 

Carisi pressed send.

And almost immediately started to hyperventilate. 

The sheer panic radiating off Sonny was so strong that Barba had to take a step back. 

“Carisi...” Barba started, trying to make his voice as reassuring as possible. But from the way Carisi started to pace, he knew he had failed. 

“Oh God, what did I just send Barba? I mean, I don’t know if I put it right or whether it really makes any sense. What if she tells me it sounds like some first-year’s essay or…” 

“Carisi, it’s fine. I went over it as well okay? Hadid won’t fire you over something so small, so calm the fuck down.” 

Carisi shook his head as the exhaustion of the past week finally hit him like a tonne of bricks, shaking the emotional guardrails protecting his rational thought process. 

“It’s a mistake, I gotta get it back…” 

Barba felt his concern quickly turn into irritation as Carisi got more out of hand. It was even scaring Tora, who scrambled to hide under the table, pressing herself as flat as she could against the floor. 

It also made his earlier urge to smack Carisi roar back in full force. His hands itched as he looked around. Not a magazine, Carisi wasn’t a dog, not the lamp, it meant he wouldn’t get his security deposit back plus it might kill him. 

So he kissed him instead. 

Grabbed him by the back of his neck and kissed him, deep and hard, swallowing his protests whole. He ran his tongue along Carisi’s bottom lip and tangled a hand in his hair. 

Barba broke the kiss when he felt Carisi tense beneath his palms. Took two steps back so he could live with what he had actually done. And try as he might, he could not stop a pinprick of pride at the clear flush streaking Sonny’s cheeks. 

The sexual tension that had been building ever since Barba had almost walked into Carisi’s arms finally thickened in the air between them to the point that it crowded his throat. 

“What… what was that?” Sonny asked, his voice steady even though his eyes had turned confused and stormy. 

What _was_ that? Barba didn’t have a clue either, but he wasn’t about to let Carisi know that. 

“You wouldn’t shut up, so I shut you up,” Barba answered churlishly, settling on what was closest to the literal truth. 

Of all the ways Barba expected Sonny to respond, the last was for him to actually laugh. A chest deep chuckle, dark and sensuous.

That, and a near growl was all the warning Rafael got before Sonny took two steps towards him and practically slammed him against the wall so he could kiss him. So he could be as physically close to the other man as possible with their clothes still on. 

Rafael felt the air knocked out from his lungs as his back came in contact with concrete. But found it hard to care when Carisi’s hands were suddenly in his hair, his nose nuzzled in his beard as he pressed their lips together in a slanted kiss. 

Carisi groaned when Barba licked his mouth open so he could suck on the tip of his tongue in an extremely suggestive manner. 

“God you drive me insane,” Carisi said huskily, and he honestly didn’t know whether he was saying it more to Barba or himself. Barba certainly didn’t care, dropping his hands to Carisi’s waist so he could pull his shirt up and stroke his flat belly. 

Sonny gasped when he felt Rafael’s fingernails graze the top of his pubic bone, just before the base of his cock. He could practically feel the smirk on Rafael’s lips form against his cheek, which made something hot and wicked flare up inside him. 

In retaliation, Sonny dipped his hand past Rafael’s waistband so he could stroke the sensitive notch of his tailbone in firm, even strokes. It was his turn to smile as he felt Rafael’s cock grow hard and fill out so that it was pressing against his thigh. 

“I remember you like that,” Sonny whispered, before catching Rafael’s earlobe in his teeth, making him visibly shudder in his arms. 

“Why do you have to make it so hard Rafael?” Sonny murmured, as he kissed a hot path down Rafael’s neck, dipping his tongue into the notch at the base so he could taste his pulse. 

Sonny felt light, high on the taste of Rafael’s familiar kisses that demanded attention, demanded adoration. The only thing grounding him this time was the unfamiliar scratch of Rafael’s beard against his chin. 

He couldn’t stop touching it though, running two fingers across Rafael’s bottom lip so he could suck on it, dampening the hair and making it sticky. 

“Is that a sex joke Detective? Oh sorry, Counselor,” Rafael purposefully drew out the last syllable in a silky, intimate tone, just so he could feel Sonny’s cock jerk. But he openly moaned when Sonny lowered his hand again so that he could press his index finger to his asshole, the pressure firm enough to allow a damp fingertip to slip inside. 

Rafael let out a low sound when Sonny used a free hand to fondle his prick through his trousers. But he could not stop the belly-deep groan when Sonny’s hand slipped inside so he could roughly knead his balls. 

“I remember this cock,” Sonny said heatedly. “I remember how it filled my mouth, how sweet it felt in my ass, and how it dripped when I fucked you from behind, because you like being on all fours for me, don’t you?” 

Sonny’s words, the mental images the filthy descriptions managed to dredge from his memories, caused a shiver to run through Rafael’s body. But his stubborn pride refused to let Sonny go unchallenged. 

“Really, not sure if I remember yours Carisi,” Rafael said cooly, detachedly. Even though his hips were twitching and he was practically humping Sonny’s hand. 

“Asshole,” Sonny murmured, flicking at Rafael’s shirt buttons until it was half undone. “I will remind you Rafael, I will make you beg for my cock. Then I will say no…” 

Rafael cried out when Sonny viciously bit down on a nipple as he drove his finger inside him to the first knuckle. 

“And make you beg again.” 

It had been too long since Rafael had heard Sonny sound like that, confident and commanding, his voice filled with raw desire. It winded him, hitting Rafael right in the solar plexus. 

“Then take me Sonny,” Rafael breathed, purposefully pushing forward and hitching his leg up so that he could rub Sonny’s dick against his thigh. “But not against the wall, you haven’t earned that right yet.” 

Sonny let out a soft “oof’ when Rafael pushed him back so he could head for the stairs. The younger man blinked in momentary confusion as Rafael took two steps as he fumbled with his shirt. 

But Sonny’s world sharpened back into focus when Rafael stopped partway, turned to give him a cocky smirk, and tossed his shirt over the banister. 

Sonny had never gone up stairs so fast in his life. And unlike Rafael, he wasn’t as precious with his clothes, stripping off his shirt and undershirt before carelessly tossing it to the floor. 

He had just unzipped and was about to take off his trousers, when he froze at the doorway to Rafael’s bedroom. He froze because not only was Rafael already on his bed; he was on his bed naked and spread wide with that gorgeous ass in the air and two fingers buried inside himself. 

“Fuck, you really couldn’t wait could you,” Sonny said, pushing his underwear down just far enough to release his aching prick before climbing on to the bed. Barba responded by moaning and pushing his fingers in further, which made his cock spurt more pre-cum on top of his covers. 

It was then Sonny realised that Barba had also already taken out a condom, placing it at the foot of the bed right next to a pump-top bottle of lube. 

Sonny bit back a groan as he ran his hand over the head of his cock, before smearing the stickiness across Barba’s ass so he could lick it off. Sonny gripped himself at the base to tamp down the heat he was feeling build in his groin, even as he rubbed the tip over the back of Barba’s thigh to relieve the ache. 

“Stop fucking around back there Sonny and get inside me,” Rafael snapped, clearly antsy after having played with himself for a bit too long. 

“Bossy bitch,” Sonny shot back, even as he rolled a condom on and slicked himself up. He added his own finger alongside Rafael’s that were pumping in and out, loosening him up quicker. 

Sonny made a guttural noise at the back of his throat at how tight Rafael felt, how hard he was clamping around his finger. He could feel the heated throb of his cock in the palm of his hand, while the other splayed the cheek’s of Rafael’s ass wide open so he could watch him tense and flutter. 

Pillowing his head on his hands, Rafael forced himself to relax as he felt a fumble of fingers against his cleft, shivered as he felt a quick kiss to his hole, and let out a long keening moan as Sonny slid his cock in until he was fully seated, his balls full and pressed flush against him. 

“Fuck, your dick Sonny. Fuck, _yes_ , fuck you feel so damn big,” Rafael panted as Sonny dug his knees in and thrust harder. Rafael could barely catch a breath before Sonny drove himself deeper mid-stroke, rubbing Rafael’s cock further along his duvet. 

Soon the room was filled with the indecent sound of their fucking; Sonny’s pelvis buffeted against the plumpest parts of Rafael’s ass, the slippery slick squelch as Sonny poured more lube into the cleft as he fucked him harder because he knew Rafael liked it messy. 

“Fuck yes,” Sonny breathed as he drove himself deeper and deeper inside Rafael. His movements turned unrestrained and rough as he kissed and licked every bit of skin he could, that he had been deprived of for far too long his mind told him. 

The soft curve of Rafael’s hair roughened belly, the smooth slope of his shoulder and those wonderfully thick hips that he used to anchor himself as he made Rafael take his cock almost to the root. 

His orgasm, it was just right _there_. Sonny could feel the buzz build from his fingertips and settle low in his stomach, the desire like tinder to his nerves. 

But for some reason, Sonny just couldn’t get over the crest, no matter how hard he tried. His lust would swell only to pull back just before reaching the peak, leaving him writhing in unsatisfaction. 

It had been so long since the last time they had fucked that he had forgotten how good they were together. 

Or maybe he pushed it to the back of his mind because he didn’t want to dwell over what he couldn’t have. 

Now though, Sonny clearly knew he wanted it too much, wanted it to last, but also wanted it to end. And the more he tried, the more it slipped away, until the uncertain stutter of his hips betrayed his frustration. 

Rafael felt it, even through the haze of his own pleasure every time Sonny’s cock hit his prostate. He felt Sonny’s rhythm become off and disjointed, more pain than pleasure at this point. 

Glancing over his shoulder, Rafael felt concern bleed into his lust at the look in Sonny’s eyes. 

“Sonny, Sonny...stop.” 

Rafael pushed himself up when Sonny gradually slowed down until he stopped completely. Both gasped though when Rafael pressed his back against Sonny’s chest, which meant that Sonny’s dick was as deep in as it could go. 

“Hey,” Rafael said quietly, turning Sonny’s face so he could cradle his chin in his palm and kiss the corner of his mouth. 

“Rafi, I…” 

Rafael kissed him fully to stop him from saying anything else, instinctively knowing that what Sonny wanted at this point was to keep some semblance of pride. To have his earlier brazen confidence come back. 

“Stop chasing Sonny, you know you make me feel fucking amazing,” Rafale murmured, his green eyes still full of yearning. “Your cock feels amazing, always has, big and hard and stretching me out.”

Sonny inhaled sharply as Rafael took his hand and pressed it against his stomach. Rafael then took his own hand and put it at the small of Sonny’s back, groaning when he realised that the younger man wasn’t fully naked. 

Rafael felt an almost visceral satisfaction at the fact that Sonny had been so eager to fuck him that he hadn’t bothered to take his trousers off. 

Biting his lip, Rafael slowly rolled his hips and let out a shuddery breath when Sonny followed his pace. 

“That’s it baby, you are doing so well,” Rafael drawled, his mouth open with pleasure as he guided their movements, stronger now and more pronounced. 

The rare endearment coupled with praise made Sonny realise how powerless he was against Rafael in moments like this. How, if he would just ask, Sonny would give him the world on a plate. 

Yet somehow, it also sparked a need in Sonny to be dominant, to bring Rafael to climax, to make him fall apart. Soon he let his hand fall away so that he could bend Rafael over and fuck him as hard as he had been before.

“That’s it Sonny, do me, do me harder… aaahh,” Rafael moaned, clawing at his bedspread. 

“Always Rafael,” Sonny said hoarsely. “All I want to do is fuck you. _Fuck_! Nobody has an ass like yours, I’ve not fucked anyone that feels as good as you do.”

Rafael couldn’t find it in himself to reply, so Sonny just grabbed him by the shoulder, squared his hips and proceeded to fuck sounds out of the older man that he had never heard before. 

It only took one hard thrust, driving Rafael’s prick deeper into the comforter to make him come. Thick, and hot, his spunk striping the sheets in spurts. 

Sonny held himself still as he felt Rafael’s body convulse around his cock, the heat and pressure almost suffocating. 

“Rafi, baby, I am so close,” Sonny moaned as he gave a shallow thrust. Rafael flinched in oversensitivity, not knowing if he could take any more. 

“Come on my face Sonny, you did so well,” Rafael urged, causing Sonny’s eyes to widen. He swallowed hard and nodded, squeezing the base of his cock so that he wouldn’t tip over too soon. 

Once Sonny pulled out, Rafael flipped over and propped himself up on his pillows. He slathered two fingers in lube as he watched Sonny eagerly dispose of the condom. 

He licked his lips in anticipation as Sonny inched higher up the bed so that his knees were on either side of his head. 

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Sonny breathed out in bliss as he slipped his cock into his lover’s mouth, inch by agonising inch until he hit the back of Rafael’s throat. He then started to move, slow at first so as to not choke his lover. 

He hurriedly pulled back when he felt Rafel tap his knee, worried that he may have hurt him. 

“It’s okay Sonny, use me, use me to bring yourself off,” Rafel said, a wicked half-smile firmly in place. 

It made Sonny want to laugh. Cocky fucker. 

Sonny took Rafael at his word though, and pressed his prick to his mouth so that Rafael could take it back in. This time, his pace was faster, the suction and heat of Rafael’s mouth driving him near insane. 

He wanted to come. He needed to come. 

It was then he looked down and saw Rafael’s lips stretched taut around his cock, his eyes looking straight at him. 

Sonny snapped.

“Rafi, Rafi I am going to come. Gonna come all over your face,” Sonny panted. 

Rafael then chose that moment to take his already slicked fingers and press them inside Sonny’s asshole. Past the tight ring and hard against his prostate. 

“Oh baby yes!” Sonny cried out as his climax hit him, intense and right in the chest. Rafael pulled back just in time for Sonny to ejaculate all over his face, against his cheek and his jaw, leaving silvery trails in his beard. 

It was that sight that Sonny opened his eyes to, and he immediately thought that was the sexiest thing he had ever seen. Until Rafael sleepily ran his hand over his face and licked his fingers with barely audible satisfied sigh. 

One day, Sonny swore, one day Rafael was actually going to kill him with all this. 

But for now, all Sonny could manage was grabbing a handful of wet wipes so he could wipe them down just enough. As he was doing so, he watched. He watched Rafael’s eyes slowly drift close, not realising that he had also followed suit.


	3. ~Day Three~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow thank you to everyone who is reading this and the wonderful comments and kudos. And thanks to @Sarahcakes613 for letting me bounce some ideas off her. We are almost at the end now, and I hope that everyone is liking the journey so far. Last part will be up in a couple of days. 
> 
> Enjoy, comments/kudos are love.

***

_By crossing paths it could crumble as easily as this_  
_So this is more fragile than I can express_

***

4:30 am. 

Sonny blinked, the light from the clock hurt his eyes, cloudy as they were still from sleep. As his vision started to clear, his mind haphazardly started to recognise and catalogue the familiar shapes in front of him. But they were still alien enough for him to realise that he had never been in this room before. 

A stainless steel lamp on a painted side table, an angular armchair with a back that was too low, window sill-length curtains framed in moonlight. 

It was then Sonny became aware of something pressed up against him. A weight on his back, a soft brush of hair between his shoulder blades and the bare caress of breath against his skin. 

And Sonny immediately felt his insides warm in a way that had nothing to do with the central heating. 

Carefully pushing himself up, Sonny peeked over his shoulder and felt reassurance as the sight of Barba’s familiar sleep silhouette, curled up on his side with one arm securely tucked under his pillow. 

The breath he let out was clearly one of relief, even if he wasn’t sure why. It was Barba’s house after all. 

Slipping out of the bed, it struck Sonny that he was still partially clothed, the fly of his trousers gaping open and hanging uncomfortably low on his hips. He stripped it all off with a sigh, wondering if he could find a dry cleaner with a quick turnaround time. 

Standing completely starkers in the bathroom after a quick clean-up, Sonny stared at his reflection in the mirror as water dripped down his forearms. 

Ever since moving to the DA’s office, some days he swore he didn’t recognise the man staring back at him, exhaustion settling into the lines of his face, his blue eyes red rimmed, and an almost permanent slant of worry to his mouth. 

Now though?

He felt fucking great. 

Heading back into the bedroom, he was glad to see that all his moving about hadn’t woken Barba up. 

Setting himself gingerly on the bed, Sonny leaned back on his forearms so he could watch the fall and the rise of Rafael’s chest, interspersed with the playback of snippets from yesterday. It made something bloom and blush inside him. 

The thing was, Sonny really wasn’t sure what he was feeling. 

It was as if he were listening to a brand new song, but the strains of which were so familiar. It resonated, sitting right behind his breastbone, the refrain a nostalgic echo. Sonny felt he could hum the melody even if he wasn't sure of the words. 

It made him ache. 

Sonny felt a prickling sensation at the back of his nose, which he told himself was probably the dry air. 

“Can’t sleep?” 

And suddenly those eyes were open and looking at him expectantly. But it didn’t surprise Sonny that Rafael was awake. 

“Yeah, been finding it a bit harder these days,” Sonny admitted, dropping to an elbow, closing the space between them. “Sorry I woke you.”

Barba shrugged, but his green eyes were unreadable in the dark. 

“What are late nights good for if not for melancholy?” 

Sonny let out a wry laugh that sounded more like a huff, before leaning forward to give Rafael a kiss. A brief brush of lips that seemed to both say “ _hello gorgeous_ ” and “ _I am glad you are here_ ”.

“Be right back,” Rafael murmured. He rolled over and turned on his bedside lamp before making his way to the bathroom. Sonny could not help but bite the inside of his cheek at the sight of Rafael completely naked, cock heavy between his legs and skin burnished gold. 

Like he said, it did not surprise Sonny that they were both up at this time. 

They didn’t do sit down dinners, or long lunches, or any activity that wasn’t work or sex. It seemed almost hypocritical to both of them to do anything that even faintly resembled a date, because they were not dating. 

But _this_ , this was different. Talks in the dead of the night when sleep was elusive either due to the job or their own insecurities. Here there was no need to maintain the emotional roadblocks they had put in place to protect themselves or pretend to not feel the intimacy between them. 

The last time it happened, with Barba’s head on his chest and his voice dry and papery against his skin, it came to Carisi that what they had might have not only been real, it might have been for the long term. 

And it freaked him out. 

Carisi knew that it had clearly freaked out Barba as well. 

He would have liked to say that it had been both of them that had pulled back, declining invitations and finding other people to spend their time with. But truthfully, it was Sonny that had wanted the distance because it wasn’t what he had signed up for. 

Saying that, Barba certainly had no problems finding someone new to share his bed. 

Carisi had even seen Barba out on a date once, at an expensive restaurant somewhere on the Upper East Side. He happened to have been at the deli next door, when he saw Barba leave the restaurant, pulling on those expensive leather gloves that Carisi had always coveted. 

Just as he was about to call out, someone tall and slender stepped into his line of vision, which made the words die at his throat. Someone who knew Barba well enough to loop his scarf around his neck and drop a kiss on his cheek. 

Someone who was straight-out-of-Asian GQ gorgeous, with artfully cropped silky black hair that went with his even, handsome features. 

To be honest, Carisi wouldn’t have expected anything less from the older man. 

Hand over heart though, Carisi was genuinely happy that there was possibly someone else in Barba’s life. Someone who also knew firsthand how hard he worked, and could take away those worry lines bracketing his mouth. 

The feeling was so sincere that it was enough to make him ignore the smallest splinter of a thought that told him that it should have been him. 

“Sonny, I can practically see the wheels in your head spinning. Give it a rest, its five in the fucking morning.” 

Sonny laughed softly as Rafael came back into the room and clambered back into bed, his words chastising but teasing at the same time. He leaned back against the headboard with a sigh as Rafael lay on his side and burrowed himself deeper into his sheets. 

“Sorry, I find myself trying to solve cases in my sleep these days. I swear I wake up thinking I’ve come up with the best summation ever, write it down, only to find that I’ve essentially written an abstract haiku.” 

Barba chuckled, but the intensity in his gaze didn’t fade. Carisi knew that look, reproachfully hated that look. Barba was trying to suss him out, trying to gauge how much truth his words held.

“Well, just… go easy on the Pepto okay?” Rafael said gently. Carisi’s shoulders tensed as if he had sat on a live wire, and instinctively turned away to protect himself. 

“I hate how well you know me sometimes Rafi,” Carisi muttered almost resentfully. 

But it was hard to not instantly forgive when Rafael wrapped his arms around him from behind, those broad hands warm and wide against his chest. Carisi could feel the brush of Rafael’s beard as he rested his head on his shoulder. 

“I am not one to talk. Ibuprofen was practically my side chick. Rita even gave me a carton of it as a joke Christmas present,” Rafael said with a laugh. But the humour felt hollow, strained, as it always did when it sat uncomfortably close to the truth. 

Carisi felt a pang of sympathy, which he tried to communicate by brushing his lips over Barba’s knuckles. 

“I get it now Rafael. I get why the job was so tough for you. I mean, I knew why in essence. But now that I am actually doing it, I have a whole new appreciation for you Counselor.” 

Another kiss, this time to the top of Barba’s thumb, which made him shiver. 

“And can I tell you something else Rafi? The squad? I love them, I would put my life on the line for them, but my _God_ , they can be fucking assholes sometimes.” 

The confession seemed to burst out from Sonny unfettered, as if he had been dying to say it to someone for _ages_. 

Barba couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud and long enough that Sonny could feel the vibrations down to his toes. After a beat, Sonny chortled right along, disentangling himself from Rafael’s grip, so that they could both be on their sides face-to face. 

But a part of Sonny still craved a physical touchpoint, not really to arouse or tease, rather reassurance at its most base form. He settled for hooking an ankle around Rafael’s calf and moving an inch closer. 

“Sorry to bore you Rafael, with all my grouses. I gotta say, you did warn me though, about the politics and the bullshit. Yet I somehow thought that it would be different for me,” Sonny confessed, suddenly sounding weary. 

Of course Barba knew that when it came to navigating the hierarchy, there would be days where Sonny would be out of his depth. In the NYPD, most were at least loyal to the thin blue line, but there was nothing of the sort at the DA’s office. 

But somehow he could not find it in himself to preen at how accurately he had predicted it all. 

From what he had heard on the grapevine, Sonny was actually doing a pretty good job for someone so junior, who didn’t have the gilded plaques on his walls that some of his peers had, whose law careers had followed a more conventional path. 

And Barba knew that it wasn’t going to get any easier.

So maybe what Sonny needed now to hear was a truth, rather than some greeting card pastiche of a motivational speech. Because when he had been young and starting out, there had been only one thing he wanted even more than a win. 

He wanted someone to tell him he was doing the right thing. 

“Sonny, I’ve been meaning to tell you something for a while.” 

Sonny’s eyes widened at the gravitas in Rafael’s tone, but he kept them downcast even as his breathing quickened. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m sorry if you thought that I didn’t respect you, back when we were working together, because I do. All those zingers that you had to take, sometimes it was the only way I knew how to handle you, the only way I could tell you, because you could be a lot to take.” 

Carisi swallowed hard. Again, sincere Barba was one he never really knew how to deal with. 

“Fair enough Barba, I mean I didn’t really endear myself to anyone at the beginning right?” 

Barba’s kiss, Carisi wasn’t expecting it. Just like last night, but this time it was cold and comforting, designed to erase any budding need for self-pity. 

“Couldn’t have told me this when we started sleeping together huh?” Sonny said with a muted chuckle when they broke apart. 

“You are considerably younger than I am Carisi, I wasn’t going to show my hand so early,” Barba replied with a hint of his usual snark. But Sonny could see Rafael’s eyelids start to grow heavy. 

Apparently for Barba, apologising took a lot out of him. 

Reaching out, Sonny stroked the side of his face and Rafael instinctively closed his eyes and sleepily leaned into the cup of his palm. 

In that moment, the prickle he had felt earlier transformed into all of the feelings he had ever felt for Rafael. It filled him, filled every fissure and imperfection, pushing out every negative thought or doubt he ever had about the two of them.

It made him feel irrational regrets, like wishing he could have known Rafael as a kid. Known him as a teenager, awkward yet ambitious. Taken his first kiss as they lay side by side on the floor of his bedroom listening to music. Listened to him intently as he talked about his future. 

Almost as if Sonny’s energy had infused him, Rafael’s eyes opened so he could look at him. Just look and not say a word, his eyes so clear Sonny felt he could drown. 

They were so blue. 

It was overwhelming. 

Sonny felt a suffusion of heat as he pulled Rafael closer so he could kiss a path down his face, starting at his forehead, to the bridge of his nose, down to his mouth. 

When Sonny tasted Rafael’s moan, like juniper and bitter lime, he knew he was on the right track. 

Pushing the covers down so that he could bare Rafael’s entire body, Sonny moved himself on top of the older man so they would lie chest-to-chest, shifting his hips slightly so he could feel Rafael’s cock press against his stomach. 

Sonny sighed into the kiss as he took some of his weight on elbows so that he wouldn’t smother the other man. Rafael didn’t seem to mind though, given how he put his hands on Sonny’s waist to pull him closer, so he could rub the underside of his shaft into the concave of the younger man’s stomach. 

He always did love Sonny’s body, rangy and covering him completely, his cock thick and dusky in between his thighs. Rafael opened his legs up more, hoping to move things along. Only to have Sonny push his hips down and hold him still. 

“What are you doing?” Rafael whispered. 

“Kissing you,” Sonny answered with so much self-assurance that it made Rafael hard. 

Unlike yesterday, Sonny did not feel the need to fill his belly with what he had missed. In fact, for now no one else existed to him outside the two of them within these four walls. Nothing else was more important to him than the gorgeous man lying supine and pliant beneath him. 

There was no New York, no Hadid, no election fraud, no files piled up in a precarious tower on his desk. 

Just the dark and the reassuring landscape of Barba’s strong body, sumptuous and inviting.

It made Sonny want to frivolously buy him undershirts that were too small, just so he could see the material strain and cling to that barrel chest before tearing them off. 

Fuck, Sonny wanted him so badly. 

Sonny bit and sucked at one dark nipple as he squeezed Rafael’s left pectoral. He buried his nose in the hollow of his sternum and inhaled the smell of musk and the faded bottom note of his cologne. 

But aside from that Sonny kept his hands above the waist, even as he never stopped kissing Rafael. He seemed more than content to just softly bite Rafael’s bottom lip over and over until it blushed bruised. Nuzzling his nose into the apple of his cheek, until Sonny swore he could feel the whisker burn. 

Occasionally Sonny’s hands would roam, but not where Rafael wanted them to go. A brush of fingers against his muscular upper arm, a rake of nails against the grooves of his ribs, and idle finger tracing the sensitive crease of his inner thigh before flicking his thumb over the tip of his prick. 

Through it all Sonny kept kissing him, softly fucking his mouth with his tongue, running the back of his hand over Rafael’s beard. 

It was as if Rafael was being lulled into a sensual fog, where the only things that felt real were Sonny’s hands, mouth, and the solid thrum of his heart. The only counterpoint that stopped him from drifting off completely was Sonny’s dick, and the cold wetness as pre-cum drooled down his thigh. 

It was enough to bring Rafael back to himself, and realise that his own cock was aching, twitching every time it brushed against Sonny’s belly. 

“I thought you were gonna make me beg?” Rafael said, his voice raspy. 

Sonny looked up from where he had been laving a nipple and shot Rafael a devious smile that made a titter of worry pass through him. 

“Isn’t that what you are doing now?” Sonny asked smokily, squeezing the curve of Rafael’s belly. “Because you’ve been squirming like you want to jump out of your skin.” 

“No,” Rafael snapped, but there was no real heat behind it. “I am telling you to move the fuck along, because you are sending me to sleep.”

No heat but more than a little scratch, which made Carisi’s resolve flare up even stronger. 

“Sleep? With this?” 

Finally, _finally_ , Sonny’s big hands were on his cock, jerking him off with even, firm strokes. Barba’s body could not help but betray him as he threw his head back and moaned, long and loud, one hand firmly anchored on the headboard. 

“Sleep, sure,” Sonny said, and he had the gall to actually snicker at him. It made both lust and irritation spark inside Rafael. 

“Sonny, either you put your mouth or cock to good use and either suck or fuck me, or I am going to bring myself off and you can sleep in the guest room,” Barba ordered, one hand flat against Sonny’s chest and a clear challenge in his eyes.

Threats, good, it meant that whatever Sonny was doing it was working. Because he was getting to the point where he wasn’t sure whether he could hold himself back. Where if Barba were just a little softer, a little sweeter, Sonny’s will would not have been as ironclad. 

But Sonny wasn’t cruel, and he could see how flush Rafael’s cock was, the balls tight and drawn up, kissing the base. 

He shuffled down so he could properly face his lover’s dick, and licked his lips at how wet and glistening it already was. Barba was so wonderfully hung and his cock jumped so prettily when the other man nuzzled the curls at the base. 

Sonny blew on the tip and delighted in the very visible twitch and accompanying ripple of pleasure he saw travel across Rafael’s body. 

“Sonny… Sonny…” 

Rafael bit his clenched fist as Sonny traced the sensitive flare of the head of his cock with his tongue and dug the tip into the slit. But he could not stop his whole body from jerking when Sonny finally swallowed him whole. 

Rafael groaned deep when he felt the head of his prick at the back of Sonny’s throat as he serviced him, his lips tight against the length. He threw his head back when Sonny started to bob up and down, until he felt a wetness trail down his balls and towards his asshole. 

Just when it felt too much, just when Barba was about to ask for Sonny’s hands on him, the younger man visibly slowed down his movements. Suddenly his licks and sucks were less intense, until he had abandoned Barba’s cock entirely so that he could plant brief kisses along the prominent vein underneath. 

It pulled Rafael’s arousal back to just under boiling point, and suddenly he had space to breathe. 

“You know, I could do this all day Rafi. Blow you, suck you, let you fuck my throat, until you finally lose it in my mouth or all over my face.” 

And suddenly Sonny was by his ear, tongue tracing the shell of his ear.

“But that is not what you want is it?” 

Before he realised what was happening, Sonny had a finger inside him, frigging him, rubbing and twisting against his inner walls, sensitive from when he had roughly fucked him before. 

“Yes, yes, _yes_ …” Rafael chanted as one finger became two, stretching his asshole open as Sonny poured more lube down his ass. 

All the earlier teasing and touching had just served to heighten all his senses to the point where even the weave of the bedspread felt too rough, a static shock to the skin if he rubbed against it too hard. He could feel every groove in Sonny’s fingers, the ridges stimulating him from the inside. 

“Condom Rafi,” Sonny asked, his voice cool even though he felt like he had been on the edge of coming for hours. It cut through the clutter in Rafael’s mind and put his senses back on even keel. 

“You are such an asshole sometimes Carisi,” Rafael groused, reaching for the strip of condoms and tearing off a square. There was enough gruffness in his tone that it made Sonny doubt what he had been doing, whether Rafael was really enjoying it. 

But his fears disappeared when Rafael batted his hands away so he could roll the rubber down the hard curve of Sonny’s prick himself. Where before he did, he briefly suckled on the head so he could fill his mouth with his lover’s taste. 

Rolling on his side, Rafael arched his back so Sonny could see unencumbered, see how ready and slick he was for him. 

Sonny didn’t even bother to hide how turned on he was, his teeth worrying his tongue before spitting on his hand so he could rub Rafael’s hole, mixing it with the lube. 

Rafael smiled inwardly when he felt Sonny’s dick rub against his asshole, the smooth shaft sliding in and out of that tight crevice, before finally penetrating in one firm stroke. 

The older man writhed as the head of Sonny’s cock brushed his prostate, softly at first to allow Rafael’s body to relax and open up. His strokes started out long and languorous, which let Rafael feel every inch of his girthy cock as Sonny traced figure-eights on his thigh. 

But soon Sonny had an arm around shoulder so he could fuck upwards in stronger thrusts, which made Rafeal’s nerves spark and go numb. He could hear the slap of his hips against the back of Rafael’s thighs as his thrusts got more intense, his dick snug inside his ass. 

“Fuck, Sonny, _there_!” Rafael cried out, as Sonny grabbed him by his strong biceps and shafted him harder. 

“And here I was thinking I could give you a nice, long romantic screw,” Sonny whispered harshly, desire thinning his words as he felt his control rapidly slip away from him. “But you are just too sexy, baby.” 

Barba bared his nape to allow Sonny to graze his teeth over the sensitive nerves, tracing formless patterns over the skin with his tongue, leaving a dampness which chilled his skin and made pre-cum bead at the slit. He knew Sonny was close, could feel how his cock got even harder, his movements more sloppy. 

But something Sonny said reverberated through him and just like last night he put a hand on his lover’s jaw to stop him. 

“Then on my back Sonny, finish… _ah_...that way,” Rafael said, trying to stop his body from leaning back and sinking further into Sonny’s body.

Sonny’s brow wrinkled, they rarely switched positions so close to the end, unless they were trying to make it last longer. But they had been drawing their pleasure out for what it seemed like hours now. 

However, Rafael wanted to watch Sonny come, watch his expression as he lost it. Because he missed it, missed how he fell apart, his orgasm turning him inside out. 

He turned and felt Sonny slip out with a groan, leaving him feeling empty. Propping out a couple of pillows underneath his head, Rafael opened his arms to beckon his lover closer, to be inside him once again. 

“Fuck me baby.” 

Rafael sighed in anticipation as Sonny pushed back inside him, holding on to the bedpost so he could get better leverage. Sonny’s pupils were blown wide and Rafael felt a lick of possessive pride at what a mess he looked, his cheeks hair rough and red from repeat brushes against his beard. 

But something was clearly different this time, Rafael’s touch was almost tender. Even more so when he caught Sonny’s face, running a thumb over the plush of his mouth that as he bit down, tasting musk and salt. 

His earlier feelings threatened to overwhelm him as Rafael pulled him closer to tuck Sonny’s face into the crook of his neck, so he could run his fingers through that soft silver hair. 

“Love me Sonny, please.” 

There it was, that please that Sonny had been asking and waiting for all this time. But it was said with so much adoration and intimacy that it squeezed the air from his lungs. 

Even when Barba gave in, he somehow still won. 

But it didn’t matter, never did. 

Sonny took a deep breath to steele himself before giving a small but hard thrust. However, there was no doubt that this was his favourite way to fuck. The way his body quaked and shook as he fucked Rafael as deep as he possibly could betrayed his preference. 

“Touch me Sonny, I’m so close, I need you touch me,” Rafal moaned, grabbing his own cock so that he could rub it over Sonny’s stomach, leaving translucent streaks. 

Sonny put his hand over Rafael’s so that they were both jacking him off, picking up his pace to the point where the bed started to creak. 

“Come Rafael, come from my cock,” Sonny urged almost mindlessly, pistoning his hips as his orgasm built and he started to sprial out. 

It only took one more twist, and Rafael came with a groan loud enough to bounce off the walls, slamming his fist into the headboard. His back arched, splattering his chest in lines of creamy white. 

That and the tight clench of Rafael’s ass was all Sonny needed to tip over, his nails digging into the wood of the bedframe as he drove his prick deep and gave himself up inside his lover, filling the the condom, lube and sweat dropping past his balls to his perineum. 

Sonny felt as if he were floating, a faint buzzing in his ear from the thundering of his heart. His breathing sounded loud even to him, but when his visioned cleared he realised that the echo was coming Rafael, who had his arm flung across his eyes. 

Dazed and exhausted, Sonny pulled out and disposed of the condom. He collapsed on the bed as his elbows gave out, his nose full of soothing the smell of their lovemaking and fabric softener. 

He faintly remembered accepting a warm towel from Barba, wiping himself down quickly to avoid a chill. He remembered Rafael looking at him, his eyes deep green now, unguarded and sincere. 

Then he remembered nothing. 

***

Sonny made breakfast, because he told Rafael was the least he could do, waving aside the other man’s vaguely sarky comment that it was three in the afternoon. 

Sonny ignored him and whipped up a pan full of creamy, European style scrambled eggs that he thickened with a splash of fat rich milk. He piled it high on slices of stale walnut bread, softened by lashings of butter. He had even improvised some kind of hash made from one lone wrinkled sweet potato and a plastic sachet of maple syrup, speckled with flakes of sea salt. 

When Sonny put a loaded plate in front of Rafael, he enjoyed the way his eyes slightly widened. Barba opened his mouth as if to say something cutting, only to close it when he took a deep breath, his under utilised kitchen smelling like it should. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly, picking up a knife and fork. Sonny smiled and made up his own plate, switching on the coffee maker before joining Rafael at the breakfast nook. 

It wasn’t until Sonny sat down that he realised how hollowed out he felt, but not in a bad way. It was as if last night, he had managed to put down all the negative baggage he had been carrying for months and swapped it out for kind of pleasant soreness. 

But he was barely two bites in when he felt something furry wind itself around his ankles. It was Tora, who had quite frankly, gotten fed-up of being ignored by the two men. Well at least that was Sonny was guessing from her persistant mews. 

“Noisy kitty,” Rafael chastised affectionately, giving her a scratch under her chin. 

“How did she come to adopt you again?” Sonny asked, reaching down to tentatively offer her his hand to sniff, which she did in typical disdained cat fashion. 

“She was always hanging around by the porch. I kept shooing her away, resisting her wide-eyed looks to feed her, because I am not here permanently,” Rafael said, gathering her into his lap so she could lovingly headbutt him under his chin. 

“But she wouldn’t go away. She kept showing up at night, just sitting by my door, like she was just happy to find someone that wasn’t going to hurt her. So I cracked.” 

Rafael gathered the last sliver of his eggs on his index finger and let her lick it off. 

“She is still a pain in the ass though,” Rafael finished fondly, gently tipping her off his lap so he could clear his plate and wash his hands. 

Tora didn’t go away though, climbing back on the chair that Rafael had vacated so that Carisi could be on the receiving end of a particularly haughty look. At first, he felt stupid staring down a cat, but there was a definite menacing gleam in those green eyes that made him fear for his balls. 

Trust Barba to get a cat that had the same glare as him.

But somehow it added to the surrealness that Sonny was feeling at the picture they presented. 

Barba in boxers and a white tank, pushing the sleeves of his zippered vintage Ralph Lauren hoodie up his forearms as he washed the dishes, humming along softly to something familiar playing on the faux-vintage radio tucked into the corner of the counter. Sonny in his mostly clean trousers, wearing his collared shirt over a borrowed T-shirt standing in the middle of his massive kitchen, tidying the files from the night before. 

It came to Sonny as Rafael was handing him a mug of coffee and the lifestyle section of the paper that it was as if the universe was showing him a glimpse of a life he could have. 

A life he suddenly realised he really wanted. 

“When are you back in New York Rafi?” 

Barba shrugged as he thumbed through the pages. “When this entire mess is over I suppose, why?” 

Carisi paused, fighting the urge to drum his fingers on the table. He was sure Barba didn’t realise how loaded that “why” was. 

Sonny’s feeling of insecurity was suddenly so palpable, but it was outweighed by just how _right_ last night had felt, that had nothing to do with desire or lust. 

That somehow through the complicated skein of emotions, a relationship suddenly seemed possible. 

“When you are back in New York, maybe we can see where this goes,” Sonny said slowly, but certainty underlining each word.

“Goes?” 

“You know, with us. We can try to make something of it,” Sonny said, more earnest this time. 

Not knowing that he had stepped on a landmine. 

“There is no us Carisi, I have no idea what you are talking about,” Barba said, abruptly getting to his feet and aggressively dumping his coffee in the sink. 

“Excuse me?” Sonny replied, baffled at Barba’s sudden bellicose attitude. 

“You heard me,” Barba said, turning around to face the other man, his arms crossed tight against his chest. “We spent some time together, we fucked, why are you trying to make it into something more than that?” 

Sonny pressed is fingers to his temples as he felt his grip on the conversation start to spiral away from him. 

“No, no, you don’t get to pull that Rafael. I was there, you aren’t _that_ good at hiding your feelings. I know we had something, and I know it can be more,” Carisi said, hand over his heart as he took a step closer. 

Only to falter at the expression on Barba’s face. 

“More? Suddenly you want more?”

Barba asked the question so quietly, it almost sounded like an afterthought. 

Carisi swallowed hard. 

“I told you I do Barba.” 

Caris reached for him, thinking that if he could just touch him, he would understand. Only to have Barba take a step forward and roughly brush his hand aside. 

“Of course you want this now, don’t you Carisi? When we are half-a-country apart, when I am not in New York, where nobody else needs to know?

I mean, _Christ_ , where was this a year ago? Never mind that, where was this six months ago?” 

Carisi could feel every accusation that came out of Barba’s mouth pierce him like darts, gathering and growing to the point where his entire skin was hurting. 

Finally something broke. 

“I am not a mind reader Barba,” Carisi snapped, stepping into Barba’s personal space. “You don’t have any right to put all of this on me, how was I supposed to fucking know when you never let me in.” 

It appeared that all the late night talks in the world didn’t matter a damn if your feelings didn’t hold up in the harsh light of day. 

And the thought made Sonny so unbearably sad. 

“Don’t you get it Rafi? More than anyone else, I wanted to understand you.” 

The words, they were a plea. A break in the storm clouds.

“Sonny.” 

Hearing his name being said in such a pained way was heartrending. 

“Then you need to understand that I am difficult Sonny, I am reserved, but that is me. Do you really want to deal with all of that? On top of every other stress you have?” Rafael asked, thumping his fist on his chest to emphasise his point. 

“I know all that Rafael, but it’s just not that. Why can’t you let go of your ego to maybe even consider dating someone like me,” Sonny said, his words harder now. 

Rafael was stunned into silence. But the look on his face, it wasn’t as if what Sonny had said shocked him. He was looking at Sonny like he was a complete stranger. 

As if he had just handed Carisi the answer key, and yet he still completely flunked the exam. 

“You are right Carisi, you really don’t know me, even after all this time,” Barba said quietly, refusing to let Sonny hear the sorrow beneath. 

“What are you talking about?” 

It was now Barba’s turn to confess, to let out a secret he kept coiled like a rope around his fist. A rope he clung to in order to pull himself out when Sonny Carisi got too close. 

“Liv tells me everything, you know? And one day she told me about Rollins and this handsome transit cop and their undercover mission together, that she go close to. 

She told me because it bothered her, how uncharacteristically dismissive you were of him. But it was because it was Rollins, right?” 

Sonny felt all the blood drain from his face. The kitchen was so silent now that all he was conscious of was the buzzing in his ears and the sound of the wind rustling through the trees. 

“Rafael, you know there is nothing going on with Amanda and me…”

A lie, small and white and by rights inconsequential. It should have been, if not for both of them insisting on this stupid fucking dance. 

“Even if you wanted to give me more, I don’t want to be your second choice, the almost ran. Nobody ever remembers the runner-up. And I don’t want to be in a relationship where I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop.” 

Rafael squared his shoulders, but there was no more anger, only resignation. 

“I deserve better than that, and so do you quite frankly,” Rafael said softly. 

Barba didn’t do ownership, it was demeaning to believe that someone could be owned like property. But that never stopped him from wishing during those late nights, where his emotions were free from the shackles of his pride, that Sonny would be his completely. 

But he wanted it to be his choice. 

“You deserve to choose someone who you’d want to let into your wonderfully chaotic life. And I deserve someone who will choose me, with all my issues, to be part of theirs,” Barba finished, laying himself more bare than Sonny probably even knew. 

“What makes you think I won’t Barba?” Sonny asked, his throat suddenly tight. 

Barba unflinchingly looked him straight in the eye. 

“I wasn’t the one that stopped coming around.” 

Sonny didn’t know why that simple sentence set off something inside him. It wasn’t said maliciously or with ill-intent. But Barba always did seem to know where to find an exposed nerve, with no limits as to what to use as ammo. 

“No, you were the one that went out and found someone new to fuck.” 

That line, that one line in that moment, managed to override any of the lingering feelings Barba ever held for Carisi. Papered over any cracks in his anger where forgiveness may have forced its way through. 

Easy forgiveness was something that was not hardwired into him anyway. 

“Get out Carisi. Get out before I do something I regret,” Barba said dangerously. 

Carisi gave a hollow laugh, because the threat was so typical Barba. Only this time, it was far from endearing. 

“This was a mistake, this entire trip, was just a big fucking mistake,” Sonny said harshly, gathering up his files and shoving them into his work bag. 

_No_. “Yes it was, I am glad you finally realise that,” Barba said coldy. But he had to turn away, so that Carisi couldn’t see how much he had affected him. 

He gripped the counter as he heard the door slam, but he didn’t move. Or more like he couldn’t move, his feet felt riveted to the floor as he heard the engine of Carisi’s car start and the grating sound of tyres on gavel as he drove off. 

For several minutes, Barba just held on to the counter, not knowing if he could stand if he let go. 

“I’m fine,” he told himself, over and over again. He started when Tora suddenly jumped up on the countertop and pressed herself against his foreram, purring softly. Because even she could sense that something was wrong. 

For days Barba had been trying his hardest to put his past behind him, to forget about blue eyes filled with adoration and humour, those hands that held him close, and how it made him feel something that was no longer shapeless. 

Maybe now he could. 

He just wished that a part of him didn’t stubbornly hold on to the hope that Sonny would somehow walk back through the door.


	4. ~Day Four~

***

“You looked like someone ran over your puppy hun.” 

At first Sonny wasn’t sure exactly who it was talking to him. Her voice sounded muffled, almost as if he were underwater. He felt he needed to close his eyes in order to be able to focus on what she was saying, zoning in on the distinct way she put her consonants forward in her mouth, cut with a sugary drawl.

When he opened them, he blinked at the appearance of an almost neon green pie with a black-bottomed crust on a plate in front of him. Put there by the waitress who was the owner of that voice, a hand on her hip and a smile on her face. 

“Chocolate mint icebox pie, on the house. You look like a choco-mint kind of guy.” 

Sonny wasn’t really, doing a desert like that badly meant that it would inevitably taste like toothpaste, but he was touched by the gesture. 

“Sorry, thanks, heavy weekend,” Sonny replied, turning to her with his habitual cheerful smile firmly fixed in place. She was pretty, with wide chocolate eyes and shoulder-length auburn hair. He could also tell she was flirting with him, free pie aside. 

Hence why he was grateful for the soft _ping, ping, ping_ from his phone as all his morning emails came in. It gave him the excuse to not engage in her further conversation without coming off as an asshole. 

And it was certainly none of her business to know how lost he was feeling. 

If someone were to put his feet to his fire and ask him, Sonny wouldn’t have been able to give an honest answer as to how he had gotten back to the hotel last night. All he remembered was the taste of blind rage in his mouth as he drove as if on autopilot, mindlessly listening to directions. 

How _dare_ he? How fucking dare Barba throw Sonny’s attempt at an olive branch back in his face? Even for someone as naturally acerbic as Rafael was, Sonny knew it was a low blow. 

It was this thought, this wrong done to him that Sonny held on to. To the point where it, unsurprisingly, coloured his dreams. Angry, free-form noises that sounded like snippets of arguments that they had over the years, denial embedded deep in the subconscious to the point where he wasn’t even sure what they were actually arguing about. 

But that wasn’t what bothered Sonny the most when he woke up at six am after a fitful night’s sleep. It wasn’t that which had him staring out the window as his thoughts attempted to knit themselves together in a coherent pattern. 

The kicker was, it didn’t change his feelings for Barba one bit. 

Yes, as angry as he still was, as bitter as their parting had been, a part of Sonny still wanted to see him. It was human nature to want to reconcile, even more so for Sonny who rarely held a grudge against people he cared about. 

That didn’t mean it still didn’t drive him nuts. 

Or caused him exasperation when he realised that he had inadvertently chosen a cafe right by Barba’s office. Chose it off Google Maps without thinking after he checked out at nine am, and needed a place to hobo until his four pm train. 

Only to look up after he had parked the car and realised that he could see Barba’s office building in the near distance. 

Sonny sighed as he pushed aside the pie and reached for his rapidly cooling cup of coffee. 

Maybe, it had been something that Barba had said, which stuck in Sonny’s mind after all the anger had bubbled away. Something about Sonny deserving someone he wanted to let into his “wonderfully chaotic life”. A compliment, sincere and heartfelt, buried in the thorns of their argument. 

“What’s the matter with me,” Sonny muttered to himself as he shuffled through his papers. For a few minutes he preoccupied himself with his work, tying up loose ends so that he wouldn’t have to think. 

Which was why he jumped when his phone suddenly rang. Picking it up, he inwardly groaned when he saw who it was. 

It seemed to Carisi that ever since he had stepped off the train last Friday, what he had stepped into was an alternative version of his life. A life without all of the white noise that surrounded him in New York, a life where sitting at the centre of it was Barba. 

So of course, who better to shatter the bubble he had been living in on a cold Monday morning than Hadid? 

“Carisi, you still in Des Moines?” 

“Yes Ms Hadid, heading back to Chicago tonight. Will be in office by Tuesday afternoon if you need me.” 

Hadid laughed as if his answer was perfectly cromulent, and for some reason it made all the hairs on the back of Carisi’s neck stand up.

“Carisi, you are only flying back tomorrow morning. It’s okay to take the rest of the day off. The DA’s office won’t collapse without you.” 

Again a joke, but all Sonny heard was “you do not need to justify your existence for now”. 

“But that is not why I called. I wanted to say good job on the brief, it looks like we have a good chance of taking this scumbag down. Me sending you to Barba really did pay off.” 

Yes it did, professionally, Carisi thought. She probably wouldn’t have cared how much it wrecked everything else. 

“He’s good at what he does, always has been,” Carisi replied instead. Although he was still mad at him, nobody could ever accuse Carisi of not being fair. 

“I’m sure he was, but I could see that you also put a lot of the work in too Carisi, give yourself some credit,” Hadid said almost kindly, after the briefest of pauses. “He told me as much you know?” 

Carisi stiffened in his chair and sat up. Barba had talked about him to Hadid? 

“What did he tell you?” Carisi asked, resisting the urge to tap his pen on his table just in case she could hear it. 

Another pause, longer this time, which made Carisi even more jittery than the caffeine had. 

“Don’t worry Carisi it was nothing bad. He just told me that you would always go to bat for your victim, be the hardest worker in the room and to not underestimate you, despite that ‘atrocious noise’ that comes out of your mouth, to quote him directly.” 

Carisi had to laugh, he could practically hear Barba’s voice in his head saying those words, right down to the intonation. 

“Although, I don’t know why. I could see that from the first minute I met you,” Hadid said snobbily, as if to make up for what she deemed was an unacceptable crack in the iron lady facade. 

Carisi was still smiling though after he hung up, only to have it fade seconds later. 

Rafael always spoke the truth, and he never missed a trick. 

And maybe, that was part of the problem. 

Rafael had been right in a way about him being jealous of Amanda and Sargeant Khaldun, but he hadn’t been right in why. 

A part of it, yes, was rooted in the dynamic of his relationship with Amanda. But the more cynical part of him knew that if anything were to happen, it should have happened by now. 

No, his jealousy was from feeling like an outsider. Wishing that it had been him on that undercover mission, and knowing that he would have been damn good at it. He had always thought that at this point in his life, he would be secure in the knowledge that he knew what he was doing. 

Only to choose to be the rookie all over again. And he had nobody at the squad that understood even a fraction of what he was going through. Not Fin, not Amanda, not even Liv. 

In fact, the only person who came even close to understanding him, was Barba. 

“Barba? Don’t you have a meeting with him later?” 

Sonny tensed when Barba’s name suddenly appeared in the air, as if brought into being by the sheer power of his thoughts. 

It had come from over his shoulder, the table right behind where two men in their late twenties were finishing up having brunch. Straightening up in his seat, Carisi tried to casually get a better glimpse at who was talking by pretending to look out the window. 

Even if they hadn’t dropped Barba’s name, there was no mistaking their profession. If the overly tailored suits, outwardly expensive ties and arrogant prick demeanour weren’t enough of an indication. 

“God he is such a tight-ass. I have no idea what the boss was thinking bringing him on. Wasn’t he on trial for killing a baby?” Arrogant prick one said dismissively.

“Yeah, plus he’s a criminal lawyer, what the fuck does he know about election fraud?” This came from arrogant prick two, his tone clearly derisive. 

Sonny instinctively balled his fists. He had never wanted to punch anyone so badly in life. 

Barba knew about election law because he studied, because he chose to not sleep for a week to become an expert in something he knew nothing about. He worked at it because he thought it was important. 

For all of Sonny’s doubts about them, he had no doubts about the kind of person Rafael was. 

And he wasn’t about to let a couple of assholes talk shit about him. 

“Excuse me,” Sonny said, stretching up to his full height as he came round to their table. 

“Yes?” Arrogant prick one asked, hurriedly brushing crumbs from his meticulously manicured hipster stubble. 

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the guy you are talking about? He was one of the most respected ADAs in New York, and he deserves better than the two of you trash talking behind his back. Your bosses should thank their lucky stars Barba decided it was worth his time to take it up.” 

Sonny felt a flush of satisfaction at how flustered they both looked when he had finished his talking. Good, fucking dickheads. They were both prime examples of why the world hated lawyers. 

“Since when is that any of your business? Who are you? His boyfriend?” Arrogant prick two spoke up now, sneering as he tried his hardest to stare Sonny down. But it would take more than a playground insult to faze a former New York cop. 

Unexpectedly it did something else though, it made a note of clarity ring through Sonny as loudly as a bell. 

“No, but I would be lucky to be, anyone would.” 

Sonny squared his shoulders, but he wouldn’t leave before landing one more parting shot. 

“Also, I am sure your bosses would be overjoyed to hear how you think their decisions are dumb.” 

Sonny watched with a smirk as the two of them got up in a huff, throwing down a handful of bills before storming out. Glancing at the table, he wasn’t surprised to see they were bad tippers too. 

Sitting back down at his table, Sonny gave a dry chuckle as it finally came to him, his doubts disappearing like mist on a sunny day. And of all places, it came to him in a small nondescript cafe in the middle of America’s heartland. 

For the longest time, his uncertainty had sprung from the fact that his feelings for Barba had always been ineffable and ambivalent. But maybe that is what love truly was, uneasy and hard to define because it was always changing. 

Barba had seen it, the part of Carisi that had been holding out for something more conventional. Seen it, latched on to it, used it against him. That was entirely on him and he had let it blind him to everything that Sonny was offering.

Companionship. Friendship. Love. 

When you had been fronting and hiding for so long, sometimes it was all you knew. It was why there wasn’t one perfect solution for them because there would never be. 

Bad ideas, Sonny had quite a few of those. 

But getting on an eight hour train to tell Barba about his true feelings? The best idea he had in awhile. 

“Miss,” Sonny gestured to the waitress. “Can you pack up this pie to go please?” 

And he would be damned if he left without telling Rafael how he felt. 

***

The issue now was that he had to get to Barba first, and there was one person who was standing in his way. A person he was pretty sure he could count as an ally, but whose loyalty was not to him. 

“ADA Carisi? What are you doing here?” Carmen asked, getting to her feet as he came bursting through the door. She raised an eyebrow at his slightly disheveled appearance, wondering if he had sprinted here. 

Which he had, adrenaline and determination feeding each step. It actually irrationally pissed him off how winded he was, given that he thought that he was still in pretty good shape. But apparently being chained to a desk 24/7 had taken some of the wind from his sails. 

“I’m here… I’m here…” 

And he cursed how he couldn’t seem to catch his breath enough to put a sentence together. 

“I’m here, to give you pie Carmen. Chocolate mint,” Carisi said definitively, handing over a paper bag. She looked surprised at the randomness of Carisi’s gift but accepted it anyway with a soft thanks. 

“Is Barba in?” 

The change to her demeanour was so minute Carisi might have missed it if he hadn’t been looking for it. Not only did her eyes darken, but she deliberately put her body between him and Barba’s partially open door. 

“He isn’t Mr Carisi. He has a series of meetings so he won’t be in at all today. But I can take a message if you want,” she said with a strong uptilt of her chin, her voice betraying nothing of how she actually felt about him barging in. 

For a minute Sonny’s resolve sputtered. When he pictured this moment in his head, it wasn’t her that he would be telling this too. But something compelled him, told him, that if he didn’t say it now he never would. 

“I’m leaving today Carmen, got a ticket on the four o’clock train. But there is something I need to tell Barba that I can’t over the phone or anything else. So I am trusting you Carmen, and I am continuing to trust you to tell him this.” 

Sonny took a deep breath that he swore Carmen echoed. 

_Here it goes_.

“Can you tell him that I am sorry for what I said to him. But more importantly, I want him to know that if I could choose to change the way I feel, I wouldn’t be here right now. But I don’t want to change it.”

He could feel his heartbeat, a tattoo against his ribcage. 

“Tell him, I want this. I want all of this. I want everything he is willing to give me and more. I want everything he is willing to throw at me. 

And most importantly Carmen, can you tell him that he was never an almost ran or a second choice.” 

Taking a step forward, Carisi let go of the last of his reluctance, allowing it to transform into a determination that defined the slope of his shoulders. In her life, Carmen never had seen blue eyes that calm before. 

“He was just a choice I never thought I had.” 

He thought he saw Carmen’s throat twitch, but that might have just been his imagination. The woman was a Sphinx when she wanted to be. 

“Can you remember that?” he asked softly. She nodded. 

“Okay sure, Mr Carisi,” she responded evenly. 

He took it as a good sign. 

“I’m gonna go Carmen. Take care of yourself please,” Carisi said, the genuine concern in his voice now targeted towards her. And for some reason, that moved Carmen even more.

“I will. You too Mr Carisi,” she said. 

She waited, waited until he left. Waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps out in the lobby, until she could hear the buzz of the front door. 

It was only then that she took two steps backwards and rapped on Barba’s door in a sharp staccato over her shoulder. 

“Did you hear that boss?” She asked softly, leaning slightly against the wood.

Pushing the door open a fraction more, she came face-to-face with Barba’s back, rigid and stock still with his arms loose by his side. 

“I don’t know what you are talking about Carmen,” Barba finally said, his voice sonorous and unemotional as he turned to face her. His horn-rimmed glasses made it impossible for her to read the expression in his eyes. 

But she already had her answer. 

Nodding to him, she smiled to herself as she made her way back to her desk. But made a point of putting her phone just within reach.

Yes, she always did like Mr Carisi. And lucky for him, she happened to like chocolate mint pie as well. 

***

“The four o’clock to Chicago will be leaving from Platform 2. Passengers should make their way…” 

Sonny winced as a sharp blast of feedback interrupted the announcement over the PA system, setting his teeth on edge. He wondered whether the wail of static was deliberate so that people wouldn’t ignore the robotic female voice and miss their train. 

Pulling back his sleeve, he saw that it had just turned half-past three and he had been sitting in the waiting room for hours. 

After leaving Barba’s office, Carisi had headed straight for the train station so he could drop off the rental and find a place to wait it out. He needn’t have worried though, Monday afternoon’s were clearly not a popular travel time, which meant that the station was almost empty. 

It meant that he was able to finish his work in relative peace, which meant an easier work week when he finally got back to New York. 

Now, only if his heart would stop leaping every time someone new entered the room. 

Sonny wasn’t expecting Barba to show up at the train station to see him off, he was a realist even if he was a romantic. Logically, it made no sense, it was too short a time to talk things through and long enough for them to get into another argument. 

But he would be lying if he didn’t admit that a part of him wouldn’t stop hoping for it. 

Glancing again at the time, Sonny knew that he should make his way to the platform, to maybe settle in properly before the long journey ahead. 

So why did his feet feel heavier with every tick of the minute hand? 

Eventually at quarter to the top of the hour, Carisi knew he couldn’t sit there any longer. He was growing antsy in his shoes at the very thought that he wouldn’t make the train, a very modern kind of anxiety but an anxiety nonetheless.  
And yet when he got to his platform, he just stood there outside the carriage, almost as if he were mentally preparing himself. 

Taking a look around, Sonny felt an unexpected wave of fondness hit him as the events from the past three days came back to him. He had wondered on Friday what was the worst that could happen in three days. 

But now he realised it was enough time to reconnect, reconfigure, help someone, and fall back in love. 

“Is this is your train? You’d better get on, we are running about ten minutes behind,” a harassed looking Amtrak conductor said to Sonny as he walked by. 

“Yeah sure,” Sonny said, realising that he might actually be the last person to get on the train. 

Taking a deep breath, Sonny put one foot on the train, entering the narrow buffer space just before the cabin, his travel bag hanging heavy in his hand. 

“Sonny...” 

Sonny blinked. He could have sworn he heard someone say his name, but surely he must have been imagining it, right? A projection of what he had been feeling earlier. 

“Sonny!” 

Sonny’s breath caught in his throat as it became clear to him that it wasn’t some figment, that someone actually was calling out to him. 

He turned so that he was facing the doorway to the carriage. 

And there he was. 

Rafael.

Still dressed in work clothes, breathing slightly heavily as if he had just done a brisk minute mile, his hair wind rumpled, his green eyes filled with determination. 

Sonny never thought he had seen him look more gorgeous. 

Sonny took two steps so he was at the doorway. “Rafael, what are you…”

Even before he had finished speaking, Sonny knew that Rafael would kiss him. Just like he had all this weekend. Sonny knew that Rafael would grab him by his collar and pull him close, his lips dry but passionate enough to steal his breath from his chest. 

When they both finally pulled back, both their cheeks were flushed. 

“I am sorry too Sonny,” Rafael said quietly. “The things I said, I mean…” 

Sonny stopped him with another kiss. He loved apologetic Rafael, but that wasn’t the most important thing to him right now. 

“I know Rafi,” Sonny said softly, stroking the hair at Rafael’s temples with his thumbs. “I meant every word though. We just lost sight of some of it.” 

In a way, this was a strange place to be having this conversation, this neutral space between the train and the platform. 

But then Sonny realised that for them, it was only in the spaces in between where they were truly honest. 

Between friends and lovers. Between snark and sincerity. Between nautical twilight and the dawn. Between being a lawyer and being a cop. 

And that it was here, at the in between of their past and future, that they found their present. 

Sonny felt all his emotions swell up inside him like a wave, churning and thunderous as it was about to crest. 

“I love you.” 

And just like that, Sonny’s heart stopped. 

There it was, no camouflaging, no obscuring behind veiled words or side looks. Rafael Barba, whose default setting was hiding his real feelings behind the chip on his shoulder, just uttered those words like it were the absolute truth.

“I miss you,” Sonny said, salt burring the edges of his voice, taking Rafael’s hands in his. “Come back to me.” 

_To_ me. Not _with_ me. _To_ me. 

Rafael nodded while looking down, but he never let go of Sonny’s hands. 

“I just need...a bit of time Sonny,” Rafael said softly, honestly. And Sonny knew he wasn’t just talking about the work he needed to finish, or the feelings he needed to sort out. 

They would be together, they just needed some time apart to figure out how, before they would figure it out together. 

The world would constantly change around them, but some truths would always remain. 

Like how a part of Rafael would always see Sonny as that overly eager, earnest blue-eyed boy that he had first met all those years ago. It nestled nicely in the man he had become, standing before him. 

And how Sonny when treading water, instinctively looked for the one thing that gave him purchase. Who buffered the riptides and ensured that he wouldn’t drown. 

“Excuse me you two, either he gets on or you get off. You are holding us up,” the conductor said testily, clearly not a fan of the both of them. 

Sonny huffed. 

“You had to do this now huh Rafi?” Sonny chastised him affectionately. “Couldn’t cut it any closer could you?” 

Rafael shrugged. “You know me, I always did like to make an entrance.” 

Sonny rolled his eyes so hard he was surprised he didn’t fall backwards. 

“But, don’t expect me to run after the fucking train though Sonny. So you can put that thought out of your mind right now,” Rafale said shortly. 

Sonny threw his head back and laughed, which triggered a chuckle in Rafael. 

“See you back in New York Rafi,” Sonny said warmly, gathering the other man in a hug before pressing another kiss to his mouth. 

“See you,” Rafael said, suddenly sounding so soft. 

He said he wouldn’t run alongside the train, but Barba remained on the platform, watching as Sonny settled himself into his compartment and pulled up his blinds. 

For the rest of his life, this would be the image that Sonny would bring up of Rafael when he felt lost, when the nights turned dark and the world took on a cruel tint. 

Rafael, afternoon sunlight casting shadows on his face, standing strong in dark blue suspenders, handsome and confident with his hands in his pockets, watching Sonny’s train leave with an expression that was full of hope.

Whether for them or for the future, Sonny would be happy with either. 

As the train pulled out of the station, Sonny kept eye contact with Barba until he got smaller and smaller, until finally he was nothing more than a mark on the horizon. 

Sinking back into his seat, Sonny pulled his coat off only to frown when he heard an unfamiliar rustle. Patting down his pockets, Sonny pulled out a note that had been written on yellow legal pad paper, hastily folded in half. 

“Sneaky bugger,” Sonny murmured as he unfolded it, only to have his throat thicken when he read the words written in Barba’s flowing script with his fountain pen. 

“ _Back after the primary_ ”. 

Sonny smiled as he turned the note over and over in his hand. It would do for the in between. 

He leaned against the window, watching the countryside shimmer and blur, the sun slipping in and out of the trees as the train picked up speed. He heard in his head the piece of music that Rafael had played in his kitchen, piano keys like soft crystal chimes, looping in the music box of his mind. 

Sunlight dappled his face, warm and comforting, catching on his blonde eyelashes and turning his eyes as blue as the Pacific, tousling his hair with golden fingers. 

Sonny’s shoulders relaxed as he took a deep inhale, the smell of warm uncut grass filling his lungs, dust motes sparkling the air. 

His heart slowed, his skin warmed where it came in contact with the glass. 

He hummed that song again, the words more familiar now. 

Sonny closed his eyes, and fell asleep. 

***

 _I leave this “goodbye” right here_  
_and move forward_  
_I won’t lose you once again_

***

~The End~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading and the comments/kudos. Especially for the Barisi fandom on Twitter who are lovely people. This is all for you. 
> 
> I actually loved writing this because as a couple they are amazing together, and I am glad I managed to get this out. So I hope you all enjoyed reading it too. 
> 
> Songs used: 
> 
> i. Pledge ~ The GazettE (From the album Toxic)  
> ii. 白き優鬱 ~ The GazettE (From the album DIM)


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